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  1. #41

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    Quote Originally Posted by vamelungeon View Post
    I've seen at least 2 dozen this year near my home. I don't know about other places but they aren't becoming rare here.
    Same here. Seems I'm seeing more than I used to. Who knows?

  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by Odd Man Out View Post
    I grew up in the MD suburbs of DC back in the 60's and 70's. I would see box turtles in the neighborhood all the time. I'd hate to think they were so rare today.

    Every kid on the block picked one up and took it home and promptly starved it to death back then... They have been depopulated.
    Dogs are excellent judges of character, this fact goes a long way toward explaining why some people don't like being around them.

    Woo

  3. #43
    Registered User Wise Old Owl's Avatar
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    In fact because I hang out with some friends Fish and Game had a planned inspection of indian pow-wow to discover if anyone is selling turtle shell which carries a huge fine...

    Here is another story

    Reptile Trafficker Heads to Prison

    August 23, 2013

    A 28-year-old New York woman who over a two-year period smuggled over 18,000 protected reptiles (many of them foreign species requiring CITES permits) from the United States to Canada for the “pet” trade was sentenced to spend 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to a felony conspiracy change. The defendant transported the reptiles by boat across the St. Lawrence River from the U.S. side of the Mohawk Indian Reservation to the Canadian side and delivered them to a Canadian co-conspirator. Species smuggled included red-footed tortoises (shown here), Hermann’s tortoises, Russian tortoises, Jackson horned chameleons, green iguanas, and American alligators.
    Dogs are excellent judges of character, this fact goes a long way toward explaining why some people don't like being around them.

    Woo

  4. #44
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    576823.jpg This one was just past the Lindamood school in Virginia, southbound.
    Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.

    -Ralph Waldo Emerson

  5. #45

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    Saw this guy hiking past my tent on the Rocky Flats trail in the Citico wilderness of TN---


  6. #46
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    I saw more this summer than I have in my entire life. I was doing bird surveys in central West Virginia and they were all over the place on my plots; up to 6 in one day.
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Last edited by marshbirder; 09-29-2013 at 17:41.
    ~Trudging the road of happy destiny~

  7. #47
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    love the positive coments folks but I have to stick to what I said here's why...( allow me to back up what I wrote)

    I grew up in the Chadd's Ford Valley and the fields and woods were my playground... I spent time with some science folk who do Bog Turtle inspections prior to building just off the plain of the Brandywine River... as a kid, Box Turtles and Snappers were just everywhere. Today I have to travel to Octoraro Creek area to find Box Turtles in the woods. The creek is some 30 miles away and the area is very rural. As a teenager each year our yard would be inundated with snappers that would climb out of the river and cross the highway (RT 100) to lay egg nests in our yard... I almost lost a thumb to a large one when trying to relocate her out of the chicken yard. Today the BMW's don't even slow down for the migration... there are so few left.
    Dogs are excellent judges of character, this fact goes a long way toward explaining why some people don't like being around them.

    Woo

  8. #48
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    I see them on the backroads in GA frequently and often jump out of my truck to get them out of traffic.

  9. #49
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    I found two box turtles near my workplace this summer - a busy "urban" area with no woods or water nearby, so have no idea how they got there. Escaped pets on-the-lam?
    I also see a lot of those water turtles - flat profiles - hanging out in a little creek behind my apartments. I think they're called red-eared sliders?

  10. #50

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    Saw a boxer southbound on the trail a couple of week ago at Hot Springs, a couple hundred yards north of the bridge.

  11. #51

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    I saw this guy on a day hike on the Sheltowee Trace in Cumberland Falls SP (Southern KY). I've heard from hikers doing the monthly "Sheltowee Challenge" who have seen 1/2 dozen a day. 047.jpg

  12. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cookerhiker View Post
    I saw this guy on a day hike on the Sheltowee Trace in Cumberland Falls SP (Southern KY). I've heard from hikers doing the monthly "Sheltowee Challenge" who have seen 1/2 dozen a day. 047.jpg
    I wonder how far north up the Trail you get to see them? I never see any in MA or NH. If I ever see one again it will be a real teat.

    Perhaps God gave us New Englanders the porcupine as a consolation prize or just wanted us to range more widely to see everything the Trail has to offer.

  13. #53

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    Quote Originally Posted by rickb View Post
    I wonder how far north up the Trail you get to see them? I never see any in MA or NH. If I ever see one again it will be a real teat.

    Perhaps God gave us New Englanders the porcupine as a consolation prize or just wanted us to range more widely to see everything the Trail has to offer.
    FWIW, I'm currently in the Adirondacks and yesterday, visited the Wild Center, an excellent natural history museum in Tupper Lake. They included box turtles in their displays of animals found in the area.

    But I've never seen one in New England either.

  14. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by rickb View Post
    I wonder how far north up the Trail you get to see them? I never see any in MA or NH. If I ever see one again it will be a real teat.

    Perhaps God gave us New Englanders the porcupine as a consolation prize or just wanted us to range more widely to see everything the Trail has to offer.

    There are four subspecies of eastern box turtles (Terrapene carolina).

    The Eastern Box Turtle subspecies (T. carolina carolina) may roam as far as southern Maine, it's unlikely to find any in the mountains of Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine. Most put the limit of their range as far north as Massachusetts. They should be found as far west as the Mississippi River, and north to the Great Lakes and south to north Florida.

    The subspecies Florida Box Turtle is found throughout peninsular Florida and to the Florida Keys.

    The subspecies Gulf Coast Box Turtle (T. carolina major), "major" because it is the largest,ranges along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico from the Florida panhandle to the Mississippi delta.

    The forth subspecies is the Three-toed Box Turtle (T. carolina triunguis). Their shell does not have the colorful pattern of the others, instead is a sort of dull brown, Although the skin on their neck and legs is colorful. They live from west of the Mississippi River into central Texas and the southern mid-west.

    All of them can cross breed and create offspring that are a mix of traits.
    The trouble I have with campfires are the folks that carry a bottle in one hand and a Bible in the other.
    You never know which one is talking.

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    Quote Originally Posted by WingedMonkey View Post
    The subspecies Florida Box Turtle is found throughout peninsular Florida and to the Florida Keys.
    I left off the Latin (T. carolina bauri)
    The trouble I have with campfires are the folks that carry a bottle in one hand and a Bible in the other.
    You never know which one is talking.

  16. #56
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    How many in your herd these days, WingedMonkey?

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    Quote Originally Posted by rickb View Post
    How many in your herd these days, WingedMonkey?
    I'm about to put mine on birth control.

    I had 38 successfully incubate this season. The last was about two weeks ago. Then Saturday I was digging and adding new mulch and compost to the adults pen when I accidentally dug up three more eggs. Went ahead and put them in an ice cream pail of sphagnum moss just to see what would happen even though two of them had holes from my cultivating fork.

    Last night all three of those finished hatching. A total of 41 new babies to feed. That is just this year's crop.
    The trouble I have with campfires are the folks that carry a bottle in one hand and a Bible in the other.
    You never know which one is talking.

  18. #58
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    I expect everyone is exhausted from celebrating World Turtle Day yesterday, but wanted to wish everyone plenty (or at least a few) Box Turtles this hiking season, in those sections where they have not been extirpated.

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    Quote Originally Posted by rickb View Post
    I expect everyone is exhausted from celebrating World Turtle Day yesterday, but wanted to wish everyone plenty (or at least a few) Box Turtles this hiking season, in those sections where they have not been extirpated.
    Awesome post! Thanks for the smile, great way to start the day.
    fortis fortuna adjuvat

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