By Lauren Wanko
Correspondent
Tilapia’s on today’s menu at the Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science. These students are feeding the nearly 20 diamondback terrapins they’re caring for.
“There is something really special about these terrapins that connect with people,” Alexa Ornstein said.
Over the past seven years, hundreds of MATES students have volunteered countless hours to Project Terrapin in an effort to protect the turtles. Diamondback terrapins are native to New Jersey. The reptiles live in a mixture of salt and fresh water. Earlier this month many of these students testified in front of the Senate Environment and Energy Committee.
“Terrapins are considered a game species meaning that people are able to eat them and hunt so our main initiative is to get a bill passed that would change their status from a game species to a species of special concern,” said Michael Signorelli.
The bill was approved by the committee. The measure would designate the diamondback terrapin as a non-game indigenous species.
If the bill becomes law, it would no longer be legal to catch or take the turtle in New Jersey. In early March, the Department of Environmental Protection commissioner closed the commercial harvest season for the turtle species due to pressures from increased harvesting. The season runs from Nov. 1 through March 31.
“Our goal is to get this bill passed before November to shut down the harvest before anyone else can go out and catch them and sell them,” Signorelli said.
Dr. John Wnek’s been studying the diamondback terrapins in Ocean County for the past 14 years. He says in that time, the population’s declined 25 percent in Barnegat Bay.
“They are an indicator of the health of the environment,” said 12th-grader Kamili Lukosiute.
“But more specifically the health of a salt march. It’s one of the top predators of the salt marsh when it is an adult so it kinda feeds down that salt marsh so it feeds on other organisms to help keep a balance,” Wnek said.
At the MATES school, students change the turtles’ water daily, feed them and apply a shell treatment. They even have an ICU of sorts for sick turtles.
Project Terrapin also has an outreach component. Scoots is the school mascot and joins the students on trips to schools and environmental festivals where they educate those about the importance of the terrapin. They reach 6,000 people a year.
So far, Project Terrapin’s given out 20,000 terrapin excluders to bait shops and commercial fishermen.
“This prevents turtles from entering the crab pots and some of them go in and suffocate and drown,” said Katie Demario.
The group sends turtle crossing signs to towns too.
“One way that the terrapin population has been declining is when they get hit by different cars,” said Colleen Cochran.
Back in the lab, students care for about 50 hatchlings.
“There is only a 1 percent survival rate in the wild,” Courtney Tierney said.
Project Terrapin rescues the little hatchlings. They care for the babies for about 10 months. Next week, they’ll release them back into the wild.