OLD LYME -- Ever wonder what animals do when we’re not watching?
Greg Marshall did.
He created the Crittercam to find out.
Marshall, a National Geographic fellow/research associate, developed the Crittercam as a way to provide just such insight.
On Thursday Marshall and fellow conservationists attached the Crittercam to a snapping turtle which they released into the wild at Mill Pond in Old Lyme. It was the fourth year the video camera has been deployed.
The small camera is mounted on reptiles and other animals to provide scientists with information about the creatures and their environment.
At the Tributary Mill Conservancy, Inc. in Old Lyme, Marshall and Dr. Tobias Landberg an assistant professor at Arcadia University who has also been involved studying snapping turtles, explained that the Crittercam will record about eight hours of the turtle’s activity beginning on Friday morning - eighteen hours after its initial release.
The goal is to learn as much as possible about the snapping turtle in hopes of protecting the species for generations to come.
Until 2013, the trapping, poaching and killing of the snapping turtle had absolutely no regulation in Connecticut, Landberg said. "We need to protect them. We need to understand them," said Landberg, the lead scientist studying the snapping turtle.
State Representative Matthew Lesser of the 100th Assembly District has spearheaded legislation for the protection of snapping turtles.
“[We are] moving forward on more and bolder steps to protect Connecticut’s remaining snapping turtles but we need to have the data to let science speak to inform our policy makers about what we need to do to protect this important part of our ecosystem,” said Lesser.