John Ball Zoo program saving local turtles with ‘head start’

Matt Jaworowski
·2 min read

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — It has been another successful spring for John Ball Zoo’s conservation team.

Zoo officials announced Wednesday that their conservation team has released 24 Eastern box turtles into the wild after giving them a “head start” at the zoo.

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“Head starting is a conservation practice in which young animals are raised with human intervention and then released when they are less susceptible to predators,” zoo officials said in a statement.

John Ball Zoo's conservation team has released 24 Eastern box turtles into the wild after giving them a "head start" at the zoo. (Courtesy John Ball Zoo)
John Ball Zoo’s conservation team has released 24 Eastern box turtles into the wild after giving them a “head start” at the zoo. (Courtesy John Ball Zoo)

Eastern box turtles are considered a threatened species in Michigan and are legally protected. JBZ Conservation Manager Bill Flanagan says the program helps ensure the turtles can have a “promising future.”

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“Turtles are a very important part of Michigan’s ecosystem, and the research John Ball Zoo and our partners are conducting helps bolster conservation for multiple species,” Flanagan stated.

Zoo employees work with students and faculty at Grand Valley State University and the Pierce Cedar Creek Institute in Hastings to raise the hatchlings. Faith Kuzma, a GVSU alum who now works as the field conservation coordinator at John Ball Zoo, said the research confirms that “head starting” is a helpful conservation tool.

John Ball Zoo's conservation team has released 24 Eastern box turtles into the wild after giving them a "head start" at the zoo. (Courtesy John Ball Zoo)
John Ball Zoo’s conservation team has released 24 Eastern box turtles into the wild after giving them a “head start” at the zoo. (Courtesy John Ball Zoo)

The partnership released 65 “head-started” turtles between 2019 and 2023. Kuzma radio-tracked 50 of the turtles for her graduate thesis and found that the turtles from the partnership had much higher survival rates compared to those raised naturally.

“We believe the larger size of our head-started turtles is what leads to their survival rates,” Kuzma stated. “These turtles were more than five-times larger after spending nine months at the Zoo than wild hatchlings of the same age, and that larger size makes them less vulnerable to common turtle predators, giving them a survival advantage.”

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The John Ball Zoo’s conservation team works with more than a dozen programs, including ones dedicated to the red panda, the snow leopard and the massasauga rattlesnake.

With the summer weather moving in for the season, turtles will become more active across West Michigan. The state is home to 10 different turtle species. While it’s important not to bother them, most Michigan turtles are not dangerous and little things can be done to look out for them.

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