Turtles live is the coolest habitats in the world! They live in aquatic habitats including ponds, lakes and rivers, but are most often found in wetlands. Wetlands are habitats that are needed and used by more than 70% of all of North America's fish and wildlife at one stage of their life cycle! Wetlands may be the most important and diverse habitats in the world.
What are wetlands? Wetlands are defined in Canada as habitats where water floods land for more than 45 consecutive days of the year, and therefore where organic spongy soil develops. The plants that love water and organic soils are unique and, with the soils, are able to remove excess nutrients and pollutants from the water and environment. The spongy soils also control water levels, by soaking up excess water and reducing flooding, and by providing water when everything else is dry. Wetlands are found in the middle of forests and fields, at the edges of lakes and rivers, as ponded areas that beavers have dammed among the rocks....
Globally wetlands also encompass estuaries, salt marshes, vernal forest pools, and flood plains...
Basic types of wetlands in Eastern North America can be clustered in the follwoing definitions/types:
However, turtles also live in:
Turtles here have territories than can span 8km/6miles squared in size; and some species are known to venture even further from their mainstay areas to reach nesting sites.
Many turtles (likely most freshwater turtles in eastern North America) will use multiple aquatic habitats throughout the annual cycle; areas for hibernation may differ from feeding areas, mating areas, or summering areas. Also, turtles know their territories well! They are smart! Turtles have spatial memories of where each of these destinations are and of the areas in between! Their territories can be considered their language; and moving a turtle away from their territory is like asking them to learn a foreign language- which usually fails.
This means that most freshwater turtles will travel far distances over roads which are dissecting their territories (and with development increasing some turtles may be older than the roads that they encounter and will have travelled these dedicated routes before the roads were built!).
In rural areas, turtles will have to travel across an average of 8 roads - twice a year. In exurban areas, the amount doubles.
