♪♪ >> MILLS: [ Laughing ] You can see.

So, this is a little American alligator.

It's not a crocodile.

Okay.

Here we go.

Here's a couple more.

In fact, one of them just flew.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Turtles are among the most recognizable animals on Earth, and it's probably because of the shell.

Now, this shell is made up of the carapace and the plastron, and it's made of bone.

And it's important to remember -- turtles can't shed their shell and grow a new one, or they can't crawl out and then find another shell somewhere else.

This is part of their skeletal structure, and as they grow, their turtle shell grows with them.

Now, this shell is from a turtle that died obviously a long time ago, and I found the shell out in the woods.

Turtle shells are really good for protection from various predators.

They're also important for thermoregulation.

In this episode, we're gonna take a look at some of the turtle species that live right here in the Low Country.

♪♪ Since most of our turtles live in the water, we have a variety of aquatic traps to choose from.

So, what we're gonna do is set some of these, but I wanted to show you how these work.

And here's one example.

This is a smaller trap.

It's a Promar-type trap.

But these are nice and compact.

And they have two mouths on them.

You set them in a likely looking spot, partially in the water, partially exposed so the animal can get up and breathe, and hopefully you catch something there.

Here's another neat one.

This is a modified fish trap, actually.

And this is better for slightly bigger turtles.

And then we have the big one, and this is a big turtle trap, really well-suited for bigger turtles.

And you notice there's sort of a funnel on one end, and then there's a way that you can open it up and get the turtle out on the other side.

But the one thing we're missing is bait.

And for bait, sardines are about as good as it gets.

You know, they ran out of regular sardines, and so we ended up having to get some with green chilies.

So, I guess that's one of the things that we're gonna decide is whether or not regular sardines or green chilies work best.

Anyway, we're gonna set some of these traps and see what we can catch.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Boy, look at the duckweed here.

This... [ Laughing ] Whoa!

Well, that was...

The bank is pretty steep here.

You can see the duckweed here.

This is really, really thick, but turtles love this stuff.

Turtles will feed on it.

And, of course, it's good to hide in, as well -- a little salamander larvae there.

Anyway, let's see what's in this trap.

Feel something.

Nothing.

There's a crayfish right here.

So, we know one of the things these turtles are eating -- these crayfish.

And turtles love crayfish.

Well, let's go check another trap, see if there's something in that one.

♪♪ Sneak in here.

Oh-oh!

Big slider turtle, it looks like.

Actually, this is a female.

I can tell by size.

Oh, whoa.

There's two of them in here.

Alright, I'm gonna see if I can pull this up on land.

It's kind of heavy.

Okay.

So, we have two slider turtles here.

And right off the bat, we have a male.

And the way I know that is look how long the claws are.

So, males have really long nails -- this one especially.

And, also, they're a little bit smaller.

They don't get as big as females.

Let's look at a female.

And look how much bigger that turtle is -- short nails and just a much, much bigger animal.

Now, this is one of the most common turtles that we have in the Low Country.

They do have a yellow belly, and that's one of the ways that they got their name.

They typically have two spots right here, as well -- not always but usually.

And if you see a turtle sitting on a log or sliding down the bank in the Low Country, there is a good chance it's a yellow-bellied slider.

♪♪ ♪♪ See something moving around in this trap.

Whoa!

Sort of steep right there.

[ Laughs ] There are three -- no, just two alligators in this trap, but there's something else, too.

Man, this is good stuff.

Alright, I'm gonna pull this up on the bank and get a better look.

This is something you don't normally look forward to.

There are two snapping turtles and two alligators in this trap, which is kind of a lot of snap per trap, I guess.

So, what I'm gonna do is figure out how to get some of this stuff out.

Okay, so, the first thing we want to do is deal with the alligators.

We didn't intend to catch those.

But when you use a trap like this, sometimes you get alligators.

And it looks like this is a trap with green chilies.

So, I don't know if that's significant.

Lots of fight starting in the trap.

So, let's do these maybe one at a time.

There's one.

[ Laughs ] There's a lot of -- lot of snapping going on here.

Look at that little tyke.

>> [ Warbling ] >> MILLS: So, you can hear the vocalizations.

So, I'm gonna let this little guy go.

See if we can get -- there we go.

That first one was kind of a warm-up gator.

I think I'm gonna figure out how to get this next one out.

There's no real, real easy way to do this.

But I think what I can do...

There we go.

>> [ Warbling ] >> MILLS: Okay, so, here, a little bigger but still a youngster.

This one's vocalizing quite a bit, and this is kind of a residual call.

You know, when they're babies, they do a lot of vocalizations, and we think alligators communicate with these vocalizations.

Wow, they're awesome.

But we're not talking about alligators.

We're talking about turtles.

So, let's put this one in.

>> [ Warbling ] >> MILLS: Okay.

So, he's safely back in the water.

Now we're down to just two animals in the trap, which is [Chuckles] still kind of impressive.

Alright, I worked these guys down to the other end, and God, look at that snapper.

Common snapper.

Now, they have ridiculously sharp claws, and, you know, they just try and protect themselves.

The other thing about snappers is they smell like a rotten pumpkin.

They have a really pungent odor.

And I don't know exactly why that is, but, boy, you can see where they get the name "snapping" turtle.

Big, hooked beak, and they can really snap if they want to.

Of course, catching small animals like crayfish and things.

[ Laughs ] You really have to be careful with these.

I used to work up a lot of snapping turtles for some of the research we did, and, boy, they can get you a lot of different ways.

But, anyway, common snapper, not an alligator snapper.

In fact, let's look at this other one.

We'll let this one go.

♪♪ See if we can get this one out.

You know, they just kind of grab everything with their claws.

So, a little bigger.

This is by no means a big snapper.

They get enormous.

I mean, a big snapping turtle can weigh 25, 30 pounds, and the biggest can weigh 50 pounds.

And people want to call them alligator turt-- yowch!

People want to call them alligator turtles and all kinds of things like that, but they are common snapper.

And I know the tail looks like an alligator and all kinds of things like that, but we do not have alligator snappers in South Carolina.

We have common snappers, and they're impressive enough.

♪♪ ♪♪ Man, look at this lizard's-tail!

I mean, this is really thick in here.

I'm working my way over to this little ditch, and it's certainly low and wet here, but I don't think I've ever seen so much lizard's-tail in one place.

Oh, here's something!

This is a really small species.

And look at this neat, little turtle.

So, this is a mud turtle.

This is an Eastern mud turtle, and this is one called Kinosternon subrubrum.

And it's neat because it has little hinges.

And if you look at it, there's a hinge here and a hinge here, and this turtle can close up almost like a box turtle.

And that protects them when they're on land mostly from predators.

This is big as this species gets.

So, mud turtles are not huge.

In fact, they're one of the smaller turtles in the world, and they live in habitats just like this -- ditches and all kinds of small wetlands like this.

Now, glancing at this, I can tell it's a little female, and I'm going by how small the tail is.

Males have a much bigger tail.

And this is a species that lays just a couple eggs at a time and two very small eggs, and they hatch into little, mini mud turtles that have bright-red bellies.

I mean, they're really cute, little guys.

They're only about this big, about as big as a dime.

And of course it may take them many years to reach adult size like this.

♪♪ ♪♪ This is a beautiful, little wetland.

Boy, look at the -- water's got lots of tannin in it.

Check this out.

We have a couple things in here.

We have a mud turtle, and then we have a chicken turtle.

Get them both out at the same time.

So, here's the little mud turtle.

Looks like a little male.

Sort of scooped out in the middle there and has a big tail.

So, I think that's a male.

Boy, this one's got some scars on him.

Looks like he's been through the wars.

That one swam off, and this is what I was trying to get to.

This is -- you know, I get more excited about some species of turtles than others.

And this is a chicken turtle.

And chicken turtles -- first of all, they have very long necks.

He's gonna stick his neck out maybe.

We'll see.

But really pretty, little turtle.

This one's particularly light.

And they get a little bigger than this.

Females get about this big and males much smaller.

Now, they get the name "chicken turtle" -- some people say it's because they have long necks.

But probably the real reason is because a lot of people ate these at one point.

During the Depression, this was a turtle that was pretty easy to catch and apparently tasted pretty good, maybe tasted a little bit like chicken.

Anyway, really, really interesting turtle for a bunch of reasons.

♪♪ Alright, so, this one -- everything's out of here.

I'm gonna pull this trap out, but you notice we're setting these traps so that part of them is up out of the water.

Turtles breathe air, and if you were to put the trap completely underwater, a turtle might drown.

And the other thing is, you know, I love to set traps.

I love to catch things in traps.

But it requires a lot of responsibility.

I mean, you can't just set a trap and forget about it.

These have to be checked every day and sometimes multiple times a day because what you don't want to do is hurt any of the animals that you might capture in your trap.

♪♪ You know, even a garden pond like this can have a lot of turtles in it.

So, I set some traps in here to see what's swimming around.

Looks like some more slider turtles.

Man, look at this pretty, little turtle -- little, tiny guy.

Now, one of the things that's kind of cool about turtles is you can age them by looking at annuli, or growth rings.

This looks like about a 3-year-old, probably.

That's a guess, but I think that's a pretty good guess.

Now, it takes these guys, you know, maybe 10 years to reach adult size or maybe even longer.

Okay, well, that's all the traps we have, but I'm not sure how conclusive this is, but it looks like the sardines with green chilies in them did just as well as the others.

♪♪ Alright, if you look right over my shoulder, there's a turtle that's walking down this ditch.

Now, one of our friends told us that there was a turtle crossing the road right here, and she said it was injured.

So, of course, we came running over to check it out, and it appears to be a snapping turtle, but I thought I'd pick it up and have a look.

Yeah, so, it's a snapping turtle, and it's a common snapper.

And, man, look at that front leg.

So, this is what it's supposed to look like, but this one is missing a whole front foot.

No wonder it was limping.

Now, this is an old injury.

I'm sure this must have happened when the turtle was very young.

But it's missing that foot for a long, long time.

Now, I'm not really sure how this animal got this injury.

I mean, it could have been from another snapping turtle.

Could have been an alligator.

It's hard to know for sure -- maybe even a raccoon when it was quite a bit smaller.

A couple things I noticed -- look at the leeches on this turtle.

So, turtles often have leeches.

You can see some on the back of the shell here.

Of course, they're not sucking blood here, but they are holding on.

But on the skin here, certainly leeches can pull some blood from a turtle like this.

Now, a couple neat things about snappers is first of all, look at how reduced the plastron, or the lower part of the shell, is.

So, in the back they have a normal carapace, but underneath there's not a lot of shell.

And I guess one of the main reasons for that is they have a lot of defenses besides that shell -- strong claws and of course I'm staying way away from that mouth, because the bite from these -- and I know this from personal experience -- is pretty impressive, to say the least.

This is an adult common snapper, although they can get quite a bit bigger than this.

So, we found this animal crossing over the land, but this is obviously an aquatic turtle.

So, I think what happened is it crossed the road right there, and it's just gonna follow this ditch all the way down.

And I know there's a pond down on the far end of this ditch.

So, I'm sure that's where it's headed.

The other thing is, although it's got this old injury, it seems to be doing just fine -- good body weight.

I mean, it seems really, really healthy.

So, it may be limping a little bit on that foot, but other than that I think it's gonna be just fine.

So, I'm gonna put it back out on the ditch and let it go where it wants to.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ By the time our turtles reach adult size, they're pretty well-protected from natural predators.

But that doesn't mean they don't face hazards -- hazards from humans.

But it's a good thing that we have people like Andrew Grosse.

Andrew is the state herpetologist for the Department of Natural Resources in South Carolina, and he's looking at some ways to protect our turtles.

Andrew, thanks for joining us today.

>> GROSSE: Happy to be here, Tony, and talk a little bit about some of the native turtle species we have here.

>> MILLS: And we're in a pretty good place for turtles, aren't we?

>> GROSSE: Absolutely.

We got wetlands on both sides of us here and just excited to talk about some of these species.

>> MILLS: And I hear some pig frogs and green frogs and all kinds of stuff.

>> GROSSE: Yep.

It's a great habitat.

>> MILLS: So, you brought some turtles for us to look at.

>> GROSSE: Yeah, we have a few turtles here that are -- some that may be well-known to some people and maybe not so much for others.

Let's start with this diamondback terrapin.

>> MILLS: Boy, they are beautiful turtles.

>> GROSSE: They sure are, and a lot of people don't realize that they even exist in the state.

They are the only amyda turtle that we have.

That's strictly estuarine.

Just means if there's spartina and pluff mud, you can probably find them there.

>> MILLS: Right.

You sloshed the turtle.

>> GROSSE: Yeah, just a little bit, but that's alright.

And they're just gorgeous.

But really, you know, as they reach adult size -- maybe a little bit bigger than this for females, a little smaller for males -- they don't really have too many natural predators.

Occasional raccoons might impact the adults.

But, really, their biggest threat is drowning in crab traps and then, also, when females go to nest, crossing roads and sometimes being hit by cars there.

So, this species is pretty resilient in the marsh ecosystem, eating crabs and snails.

So, a lot of food for them to eat, but, unfortunately, they are impacted by us humans.

>> MILLS: But this is one we can do something about because you can put turtle-excluder devices on your crab trap, right?

>> GROSSE: There are different studies being done, and looking at some of these excluders, and so you can still catch crabs but keep some of these turtles out and help protect them.

>> MILLS: I think it's arguably one of the most beautiful turtles in the world.

>> GROSSE: I would agree.

>> MILLS: And they're wonderful to see.

Okay, what else do you have?

>> GROSSE: Alright, so, next we have a spotted turtle.

This is another one -- very secretive turtle, beautiful spot pattern.

This one also deals with threats from crossing roads.

All of these turtles, when females move to lay eggs on land, they're impacted by vehicles.

These guys also are heavily sought after for the pet trade, both domestically here in the U.S. but also overseas.

>> MILLS: And part of it is they stay small, right?

>> GROSSE: That's right.

This is an adult-size turtle.

This is a male, and they get maybe a little bit bigger than this, but they can vary in their spot pattern.

You can see how beautiful this particular one is.

They have this beautiful orange underneath.

And, again, very secretive, living in some of our wetland systems here in South Carolina.

So, a lot of people don't really get to see them unless they find them crossing roads.

>> MILLS: One of the things I love about these guys is that spotted pattern that looks so bold in our hands.

>> GROSSE: That's right.

>> MILLS: If you put it in duckweed and dappled sunlight, it's very cryptic.

>> GROSSE: With a lot of our native species, it seems you pick them up, you see these beautiful oranges and maybe even yellow and reds.

But, again, you put it down, and it's completely camouflaged in the habitat that it lives in.

>> MILLS: So, what can we do?

So, you guys have passed some laws to protect this species, right?

>> GROSSE: We have.

So, for all of our native turtles in South Carolina, excluding the sea turtles, we have 16 native species.

And we have created, limited just the number that any one person can have.

>> MILLS: That makes sense to me.

>> GROSSE: Yeah.

So, one of the important things that we realized with the new laws is that for people to appreciate wildlife turtles, any of the reptiles and amphibians, they have to have the ability to interact with them.

And so, allowing people to still keep some -- you know, having five turtles is one thing.

Having 200 may be a few too many.

>> MILLS: Right, right.

Yeah, I agree.

I think it's good for people to have a pet turtle, but they don't need to -- and the main thing is people don't need to collect all these turtles and then sell them or ship them to other parts of the world.

>> GROSSE: And for turtles to persist in the wild, you know, their strategy is to have a very successful adult population that lives a long time and survives from year to year.

So, when you're removing, you know, even 50 adult turtles from a population, you're talking about local extirpations, and that's something that's just not sustainable.

>> MILLS: And that'd be a real shame.

>> GROSSE: It would be, yeah.

>> MILLS: It really would.

Okay, let's see what else we have.

>> GROSSE: Okay.

>> MILLS: Let this one... >> GROSSE: Alright, so, the last one we have here is another very popular one.

And, again, I mentioned we all have a story about a box turtle, right?

Everyone has seen one of these.

Whether you're a hunter or you have land somewhere or even been on public land, everyone's seen a box turtle.

And this is just a gorgeous example of -- >> MILLS: And he is a bruiser.

That is a big box turtle.

>> GROSSE: Absolutely, yeah.

So, if you want to hold this one, I'll just pull out this other one.

>> MILLS: I love this guy.

>> GROSSE: So, this is a smaller female and still a little small.

They will get -- probably the average size is somewhere in between the two, but you can see the beautiful coloration and the more terrestrial turtle.

And, again, people see them crossing roads during the summer.

>> MILLS: One of the things I think is important, Andrew, is people have a tendency to see a turtle crossing the road, and I love for people to help them across the road to where they're going.

>> GROSSE: Mm-hmm.

>> MILLS: But I don't like to see people scoop them up and then put them in the car and then take them miles away, because that's gonna have some bad effects on them, right?

>> GROSSE: Right, and if you think of it as you know the city or town that you live in.

You know how to get to the restaurants and the gas station or wherever you need to go.

[ Alligator bellows ] >> MILLS: That -- that is an alligator bellowing right behind us.

Wow!

That is -- we weren't expecting that.

[ Laughs ] So, there are alligators on both sides of us, and that was obviously a male that's bellowing, letting the females and other males know where they are, right?

>> GROSSE: That's right.

That's exactly right.

>> MILLS: So, the alligator quit bellowing, so we're back to turtles, I guess.

But that was pretty cool.

>> GROSSE: That was very cool, yeah.

So, if you see one on the road, help it across the road, if it's safe to do so, you know, in the way that it's moving.

But if you pick them up and take them to a new place, they may not know where they are, and it might be hard for them to find food.

>> MILLS: Yeah, and I always like to say, that turtle has plans.

It's headed across the road in that direction.

There's food there.

There's maybe a mate there.

>> GROSSE: That's right.

>> MILLS: So, they're going there for a reason, and I know people think they're helping, but, really, your best bet is help it across the road in the direction it's going, and then just leave it where it is.

>> GROSSE: And for things like box turtles, cars are probably one of the biggest -- it takes them a while to get across a roadway, especially with the bigger roads we have, more traffic we have.

It's a big problem for their populations.

>> MILLS: So, Andrew, I appreciate you talking turtles with us.

>> GROSSE: Absolutely.

>> MILLS: And, more importantly, I appreciate the work you're doing to protect our native turtle species.

>> GROSSE: Well, we're doing what we can to make sure they're around for a long time.

♪♪ >> MILLS: Pretty much any freshwater body of water, any pond or lake around here, is gonna have its share of turtles.

I've seen a couple species in here that I want to show you.

♪♪ Here's one right here.

And this is a little guy, a little baby yellow-bellied slider.

So, one of the things you forget about turtles is how small they are when they first hatch out.

So, this one looks like it's -- this is this year's turtle, for sure.

Now, it may take it ten years to reach adult size, but, man, when they're little like this, they're really vulnerable.

And this green-and-yellow coloration probably helps them to blend in really well with aquatic vegetation and the bottom of the pond and probably even dappled sunlight.

So, when they're this size, they pretty much have to hide for, like, two or three years, and that way eventually they're big enough where they don't get eaten by a variety of predators -- wading birds, alligators, and things like that.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Okay, I got one.

Wow, this is a big adult.

This is what I was after -- not a yellow-bellied slider, a red-eared slider.

Now, red-eared sliders of course have that big blotch on the side of the head, and that's what makes them different.

It's actually a different subspecies of the yellow-belied slider.

That's Trachemys scripta scripta.

This is Trachemys scripta elegans.

So, different subspecies.

This looks like a big female.

Males don't get nearly this big.

Now let me tell you what's interesting about this turtle.

This is not native to the Low Country of South Carolina.

It's native to just the very edge of the Southeast and then in the Midwest.

But this turtle is established all over the world.

There are red-eared sliders everywhere, and that's a bit of a problem, because red-eared sliders not really a huge problem here in the Low Country, but they're a big problem in other parts of the world.

And the concern of course is that they might outcompete the native species of turtles.

Now, very much like a yellow-bellied slider except that it doesn't have much of a yellow bellow, does it?

A lot of sort of markings on the belly here.

It's a slightly different shape than a yellow-bellied slider.

And then, of course, the red-ear name comes from that big, red blotch on the side of the head.

Now let me tell you how this got started.

So, when I was a kid, everybody had a baby turtle as a pet.

And, of course, you bought them, and they were about this big around.

Sometimes, they were yellow-bellied sliders, but a lot of times they were red-eared sliders.

Now, this happened throughout the world, and so, people would keep a turtle for a while.

They'd keep it in an aquarium or in a turtle bowl.

They'd get tired of it, and what would they do?

They'd go out to the neighborhood pond and let it go.

And that's how these guys got established everywhere.

So, the baby-turtle trade was huge.

I mean, there were just millions and millions of baby turtles sold.

And, as I said, people would just let them go, and that caused a bit of a problem in some places.

Okay, so, it looks like these turtles are being fed.

They're kind of hanging around the dock, and that made it a lot easier for us to dip-net the turtles.

Cool turtle, but there's another species that lives in here that I really want to show you.

♪♪ ♪♪ Oh, good!

Got him!

So, this is what I've been after.

Whoa, these are much more athletic than other turtles.

Okay, so, this is a softshell turtle, and, more specifically, this is a Florida softshell turtle.

And I think it's a male, going by size and the size of the tail.

Now, the first thing you notice about softshell turtles is look at the nose.

They've got a very pointed nose and the little breathing tubes on the end.

This allows them to put the minimal amount of their head up out of the water to get a breath.

They also have eyes up on top of the head so they can swim with just, again, the minimal amount of their body exposed.

They also are very streamlined.

And the biggest thing -- this is where they get their name -- very flexible shell.

Got a lot of cartilage in it, and so, very different from most of our turtles.

They have very webbed feet, and they're very athletic, very, very good swimmers.

And they're predacious.

They feed entirely on other animals.

They'll eat things like crayfish and aquatic insects and even fish.

And they have a really long neck.

The claws are starting to get me.

So, I'm being a little careful.

One of the advantages to having a long neck -- one is you can catch fish.

It allows you to dart out and catch fish.

But also they can sit on the bottom, sometimes buried in the sand or the mud, and then reach that long neck up to the surface and just the tip of their nose, get a breath, pull it back down.

But wow, what a turtle and one that you don't see as often because they spend most of their time breathing the sand or under vegetation and things like that.

So, this is a species that -- you can tell by looking at it -- it lives its entire life in the water.

I mean, in fact, they're pretty awkward on land.

And the only time you see them on land is if you see a female come up to lay eggs.

Again, this is a male.

I can tell by size.

Females get this big.

I mean, they're spectacular animals.

And the only time you see those, as I said, is occasionally you'll catch one crossing a road.

Man, what a neat turtle, but I think it's time to get this one back in the water.

♪♪ You know, turtles are so common that I think we have a tendency to really kind of take them for granted.

But remember -- the turtle that you see crossing the road or in the pond near your house may have been around for a long, long time.

Thanks for joining us on "Coastal Kingdom."

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