California’s native Western Pond Turtle tends to lie low during the winter. But in the warmer months, it’s at its most active. You might occasionally spot the turtle basking on a sunlit log around freshwater, like the American and Sacramento rivers, or places where watershed restoration is happening, like UC Davis’s arboretum.
And during those warmer months, UC Davis conservation biologist Brian Todd sets out with a team to study its local population.
To do that, they’ll capture turtles in baited hoopnet traps set along bodies of water like Putah Creek. They’ll then take measurements of the captured turtles before returning them. Todd says it’s a way to estimate the size of the population and their survival…