Recently, a few rare turtles began making babies in a Mundelein middle school courtyard.  Students provided the turtles with enticing earthworm meals, created a bubbling waterfall for them and made sure no predators were in sight, providing the perfect environment for the turtles to create a family.

Teachers, students and scientists were all surprised when 11 baby Blanding’s turtles arrived at the school.  All of them expected to wait at least a year for the adult turtles to mate. West Oak Middle School has been certified by the National Wildlife Federation as an official wildlife habitat.  The lucky students will be caretakers for the next year or two until the turtles are able to take care of themselves and fend off predators, in which they will release them into wetland areas.  The Blandling’s turtles are a threatened species in Illinois, very near endangerment.  The turtles are rare, have a distinctive yellow throat and are 7 to 10 inches long as adults.  The species is very particular about its habitat, therefore increasing the chance of extinction.  They prefer plenty of vegetation, avoid large ponds, where as other turtles like the snapping turtles, don’t really care.  This reminds me of the time when I was in elementary school, and our fourth grade class adopted a barred-tiger salamander.  We took care of it for the entire year, and a famous local sculptor, Gino Silarno, made us a life-size sculpture of a barred-tiger salamander to go in our library.  The next thing we knew, we were going to Topeka, Kansas’ state capital, and had the barred-tiger salamander named the state amphibion.  It was exciting and we all felt very good about it.  I’m sure these students are proud of their work and will love every day spent with those turtles.

Technorati Tags: Mundelein, West Oak Middle School, Blandling’s turtles, National Wildlife Federation

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 26th, 2006 at 3:41 pm and is filed under Deerfield(t) . You can leave a response.