Turtles were the topic of discussion Saturday at the Brandi Fenton Memorial Park visitor center during a presentation by Audrey Owens from the Arizona Game and Fish Department.
The box turtle is a very secretive creature and is challenging to gather data for, given that they are very enigmatic creatures, said Owens.
"We wanted to create a box turtle survey ... we decided a watch program would be really effective as a monitoring program," said Owens. Box turtles, besides being secretive and mysterious creatures, were more common 20 years ago compared with today, said Owens.
"In 2007, the game and fish started to recognize they were in decline," said Owens. "There could be many reasons why."
The presentation touched upon important factors for identifying box turtles from other types of desert turtles such as eye color, shell color, shapes, sizes and other characteristics such as whether feet are webbed. The factors are important for helping identify turtles because sometimes they will find their way into people's backyards, said Owens.
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The Arizona Game and Fish Department asks people who stumble upon desert or box turtles to take a picture and report it to game and fish so it can gather data.
"You don't have to have a GPS system, and a camera phone will work just fine, too," said Owens.
To add information about the locations where wild turtles have been seen and to find out more about the decline of the Arizona box turtle, visit www.azgfd.gov/w_c/boxturtlewatch.shtml
Janelle Montenegro is a Tucson freelance photographer.
