Title: Coast watch
Identifier: coastwatch00uncs_8 (find matches)
Year: 1979 (1970s)
Authors: UNC Sea Grant College Program
Subjects: Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology
Publisher: (Raleigh, N. C. : UNC Sea Grant College Program)
Contributing Library: State Library of North Carolina
Digitizing Sponsor: North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

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mystery begins. Young terrapins — between hatching and reaching sexual maturity at three to four years — virtually disappear into the vast expanses of salt marsh. No one knows where they go. One Delaware researcher found small numbers of the youngsters hidden beneath the wrack of dead reeds pushed up by the tide at the marsh edge. Could it be the small terrapins hide among this marsh camouflage, protected from predation, and feed on a smorgasbord of estuarine inverte- brates? Perhaps. But until biologists focus more research on these estuarine terrapins, no definitive answer is forthcoming. Last August, herpetologists and resource managers from the Atlantic and Gulf states gathered at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory in South Carolina to discuss the ecology, status and conservation of the diamondback terrapin. Their concern was that this estuarine reptile was again on the decline in many states. Researchers cited habitat loss, water quality degradation, road kills and incidental entrapment in crab pots as contributing factors to the terrapin's possible reduction in numbers. But without comprehensive population data, the researchers and resource managers could make no definitive statements about its status or any recommendations about its inclusion as a species of concern under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Why study the diamondback terrapin? Like the canary in the coal mine, diamondback terrapin popula- tions are indicators for the health of the environment, particularly salt marshes. The turtle is part of a complex estuarine food web that is carefully balanced from bottom to top among a variety of plants and animals. And who among us doesn't delight at the sound of the diamond- back feeding on periwinkle snails or the sight of the terrapin sunning on a marsh bank? As with all creatures, there is value in just knowing it's there. □
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Illustration by Anne Marshall Runyon COASTWATCH 21

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