August marked the conclusion of The Turtle Conservancy's 2024 Southwestern Pond Turtle (SWPT) field season. This year, researchers and volunteers continued their efforts to monitor four field sites around Ventura County, celebrating the third year of the program. Despite challenges posed by weather and human activities, the season yielded positive results, including significant turtle recaptures and new research endeavors.

In May, our team began surveys on our wetland population in Fillmore, achieving remarkable success with a greater number of initial captures than the previous year. However, the onset of June and its characteristic cloudy weather, an annual occurrence in Ventura County, presented challenges to survey efforts. Despite the “June gloom”, we were fortunate to observe native wildlife throughout the landscape. Our team encountered muskrats, kingsnakes and garter snakes, and a diverse array of native California birds nesting in the surrounding restored wetland habitat as well as non native invasive species. The presence of invasive species at each survey site poses a significant threat to the Southwestern Pond Turtle. These invasive species, including bullfrogs, crayfish, African clawed frogs, catfish and sunfish, compete with turtles for limited resources, prey on juvenile turtles, and disrupt the ecosystem. Our fieldwork aims to mitigate these threats and protect SWPTs. As the gloom began to gradually dissipate, our survey success rebounded. Our results in 2024 surpassed those of 2023, providing valuable data for population and health assessments of the resident turtles.

In July, our team ventured into the mountains of Los Padres National Forest to commence surveys at our second monitoring site. In 2023 the trails were closed and once popular swimming pools remained untouched for the summer which gave us the unique opportunity for undisturbed surveying of turtles and their habitat. Our team was cautiously optimistic about surveying this summer since roads reopened and people once again began hiking, swimming and other recreational activities at the field site. Despite these factors, our efforts yielded impressive results,— setting a new record for the most turtles encountered in a single day—a staggering 21 new turtles! This milestone was particularly exciting for our team, demonstrating the effectiveness of our expanded survey efforts.

Since we were able to efficiently revisit our dedicated annual monitoring locations our team was able to conduct two additional surveys of unique populations in Ventura county, each providing valuable insights into the population dynamics of Southwestern Pond Turtles that have now been isolated by human infrastructure.

Our final week of surveys proved to be the most challenging. Unlike the other easily accessible sites, our team had to navigate a remote hillside through dense brush, following game trails frequented by black bears. This rugged terrain offered a unique opportunity to study an isolated population, free from invasive species and human disturbances. On the last day of fieldwork, we were fortunate to encounter one of the resident bears, adding to the sightings of bear activity observed earlier in the week. Other wildlife sightings included a golden eagle's nest high above the survey stream, hundreds of young pacific chorus frogs scattered along the rocks, adult and hatchling two-striped garter snakes, and mountain lion tracks along the embankment.

As our annual monitoring continues, we are pleased to see notable recaptures of turtles identified in the previous two years, providing valuable insights into their growth, recruitment, and habitat preferences. Additionally, new discoveries of previously unknown individuals expanded our understanding of population dynamics within these systems. Despite the species' proposed threatened listing status and dwindling populations, our team remains optimistic, driven by the knowledge that our research is contributing to the conservation of Southwestern Pond Turtles. Special thanks to our summer interns Ashlyn Okert and Marcus Williams for all their hard work, our volunteer partnership with the Thacher School and the Shanbrom Family Foundation for their generous contributions, which have made our ongoing research possible.

Follow the link below to help support our Southwestern Pond Turtle Program!

Bonfire Website

Photos by Nathanael Stanek and Kylie Rude