SAVE THE FROGS!

I am rather fond of frogs. I even share my home with one rather splendid Ornate Horned Frog called Winston.


So a couple of years ago when I was asked to organize something at the Museum to recognize Save the Frogs Day, (Yes I am blogging about work again :( ) it wasn't too much of a stretch. We have several species of frogs as a permanent part of our living collections


and it provided us with the perfect excuse to sneak an extra couple of days of field work to go out and collect the remaining species so that we could display all thirteen species that are native to the Chicago region.


Well now Save the Frog Day has become a permanent fixture on our calendar and each year we try and change things up a bit. This year we decided that as well as displaying all the native frogs we would also show some exotic species too. In my totally unbiased opinion Winston stole the show!


As well as having over 25 species of frogs on display, we had an information table for visitors to find out about all the threats that amphibians are facing and what they can do to help.


We had representatives from the Frog Monitoring Network recruiting volunteers to partake in their citizen science program.


And we had numerous art and craft activities and games that children could partake in, all frog related


We got some great coverage from local TV channels too, here is the clip of the WGN Coverage


And here is a cut down version of the NBC Coverage and Winston won over everyone at the studio and ended up being friended by a couple of the presenters! (Yes, Winston Packman has his very own facebook page!!) They even used him at the end of the program when they were running the credits too :)


Hopefully we got our message out that many amphibians are facing a lot of threats in the modern world and they are an enigmatic and delightful group of species that are well worth protecting and conserving.



Photo Credits - CJT

THE LEGEND LIVES ON!

It is not easy sharing a work space with a major celebrity but someone has to pander to his every whim and control his adoring fans so it may as well be me I suppose.


The legend that is Harrison the Box Turtle, was called upon again this week to grace the local media with his presence. This guy has more publicity than Paris Hilton (and he is far better looking!)


They wanted a reprise of his publicity role for our Critter Cam exhibit. Of course when it comes to getting more screen time, he is always happy to oblige!


We headed out to WGN and Harrison did a thorough tour of the studio, just to check everything out, introduced himself to the camera crew (just to make sure they got his best angle), met the presenters and then he was ready to do his piece.


And here it is. (you will have to excuse the first piece of film that they show, they mixed things up and showed the Blandings turtles swimming, not Harrison, he is terrestrial not aquatic.) I think you'll agree he did an excellent job. Of course he added another adoring female fan to his collection as the presenter was totally taken with him!
As a reward for all his hard work he was compensated in true celebrity style with some tasty snacks and a pretty young lady box turtle - well he does have his image to maintain!!!


Photo Credits - CJT

HARRISON DOES IT AGAIN!

I have posted about our media hungry Box Turtle, Harrison before. He has done various TV pieces over the years and he seems to relish all the attention. His latest project is as our promo-guy for our current exhibit, the National Geographic, Critter Cam. We got a tiny little spy camera which is light enough that it doesn't inhibit him at all and he made a little video piece which I posted recently.
Last Saturday Harrison and I had a very early morning as we headed down to the NBC studios for an appearance on the morning show. As usual he was a total star and won the hearts of all the lady presenters. Unfortunately the link that they sent us of the piece is very swirly and I have not managed to work out how to download it onto my blog. However he did do another piece for a local college media website and I do have the link for that here. (Sorry about the occasional pixilation on the video.)
Is this turtle a natural celebrity or what!?


Photo Credits - CJT

A HARD SELL

On Wednesday last week one of the local TV stations came to the Museum to help us promote our ten year anniversary celebrations and in particular to talk about an event I came up with last year that we run the night before Halloween, called Supper with the Snakes. It is a really fun event where all the children dress up in their Halloween costumes and come to the Museum, meet all our snakes and take part in all sorts of snake related games and activities.
Anyway, the presenter arrived and we were doing a number of different slots with various different animals, with a loose Halloween theme running throughout. We started with the tarantula, which she was terrified of - OK well fair enough, plenty of people don't like large spiders.


(The photos are all taken on a cell phone so they are not the greatest.) We did a segment with the Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches which she hated. Well that is OK, cockroaches aren't exactly cute and cuddly! Then we did the snake segment and she was terrified of them too! Now these are about the most mellow of snakes imaginable but I know some people find them a little daunting so fair enough.


Here is the link It gives you a pretty good idea of how not into them she really was! Now bear in mind we are trying to promote an event here so some positive images would be good! The final piece I was doing I went for my best ambassador, he's furry and friendly and usually wins everyone around!


I don't know if you can see him sitting on my shoulder but it is Scabbers our rat. He is a real charmer and behaved impeccably throughout the piece, politely taking a treat from the presenter and sitting on my shoulder delicately nibbling it. And the picture below shows the presenters reaction to him!!


Oh well I guess I do work with some slightly less appealing animals although I love them all. In spite of her rather questionable coverage we did get a good reaction to the pieces and the bookings for the event doubled in 24 hours. What is the line about all publicity is good publicity? I guess it is true after all.


Photo Credits - C. Dunn

HARRISON'S FIFTEEN MINUTES OF FAME

I have mentioned before that we have a particularly charismatic box turtle at the Museum called Harrison. During the warm summer months I try to get him and the female turtles some time outside whenever possible to give them some natural sunlight and enrichment.


We are soon going to be having a new temporary exhibit from National Geographic called Critters Cams which shows all the research projects that have and are being done around the world using small cameras attached to various different species of animals. In order to publicize this upcoming exhibit we were racking our brains for an novel idea and one afternoon when I was out in the park with Harrison, watching him rambling around, I came up with the solution. Enjoy!



Here is the star with his special tiny, lightweight camera attached.


Needless to say the local media are delighted with the publicity potential of this piece so Harrison is likely to become even more of a legend!


Photo Credits - CJT
Video Credits -
Filming - Harrison
Editing - Brian
Voice-over - CJT

MORE PUBLICITY FOR THE BLANDINGS TURTLES

I have done posts previously about the Blanding's Turtle Project that I work on. This week I did a phone interview for another article about them. I particularly like how this one came out, the writer did a good job of getting all the facts out there. If you would like to learn more about these wonderful creatures, check out the article.

Photo Credits - CJT

MORE TURTLE TALES

About a year and a half ago I put together a proposal for us to become involved in a local project which works towards the conservation and restoration of Blandings Turtles.
The Blandings Turtle Emydoidea blandingii is a semi-aquatic turtle that is found throughout much of the great lakes region. It is a gentle, shy creature with a characteristic yellow lower jaw and an apparent permanent smile. (As I hope you can see in the photo above.) It is now listed as threatened in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan and endangered in Indiana. As is so often the case, humans are the root cause of its problems. Raccoons, skunks and coyotes are their natural predators and with the increased human population, because of all the delicious garbage we produce, the raccoon, skunk and coyote populations have ballooned. This is bad news for the Blandings because all three of these predators feast on turtle eggs and hatchlings. The Blandings, like many turtle species, are long-lived and do not become reproductively active until they are in their middle teens. When the female has mated she will wander several miles in search of a suitable nesting site, many females are now getting killed on roads as a result of this. Several years ago Du Page County began a Blandings headstarting project. This involves collecting eggs from both captive and wild females, hand rearing the hatchlings for two years and then releasing them into suitable, restored habitat and monitoring them via radio transmitters.
Two months ago we took delivery of two seven year old females (one of which is in the top picture) and three one year old hatchlings (one seen on my hand above). We had a custom built tank made for them, thanks to an extremely generous donation to the Museum, with 'land' areas and plenty of water for the turtles to swim around in. The tank also has one-way glass so that we can see the turtles but they can't see us. This is particularly important for the hatchlings because they are going to be re-released so they must not become too used to humans.

This picture shows Jamie introducing one of the females to its new abode!

The reason the scheme is called headstarting is that with the correct nutrition and care, a two year old captive raised turtle can be between two and three times the size of a wild one of the same age. When the captive raised turtle is then released into the wild, it is bigger and stronger and so more likely to survive - so we are giving it a headstart!

We have to monitor the growth rates of the turtles to ensure they are getting the correct variety of nutrients (just like any baby!) They have a varied menu which includes earthworms, crickets, fish, mealworms, greens and pelleted turtle food (YUM!)


Each month we have to weigh and measure each turtle to ensure that they are not growing too fast or too slowly. It is just as easy for a turtle in captivity to become obese as it is for your pet dog!
Weight watchers for turtles! Here is one of the hatchlings being weighed.
And then carefully measured.
Finally, each hatchling has a number, in order to track which clutch of eggs it came from. These numbers wear off over time so when we weigh and measure them, we re-apply their number too. (Some people think that the numbers are for turtle races, rather like Nascar!)

This is the beginning of an exciting new project for us. If all goes as planned, our three hatchlings will be released later this year, equipped with tiny radio transmitters, and we will then be given several newly hatched babies to raise. The two, larger, females will stay with us until they are old enough to reproduce when they will be taken to an outside enclosure with good sandy areas for them to dig and lay their eggs. These are very endearing creatures and it is a great thrill to be actively involved in doing something to redress the balance and give their species a better chance of surviving.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=6094619
This is a link to a piece I did for local TV about the Blandings Turtles.

Photo Credits - CJT and Jamie Stubis.