What can I do to help collect Box Turtle Data?
Are you interested in helping collect box turtle data? We need your help! Now, decide the level of commitment which you are able to make.
A. Low level of commitment: I am interested in helping from time to time. I am able to collect data on location, sex, and habitat and am willing to enter these data online. I prefer not to have any deadlines for this data entry.
We’re asking users with turtle sightings to report their sightings to the Herp Mapper (http://www.herpmapper.org/). Herpmapper.org is easy to use and tracks and logs sightings of reptiles and amphibians all over the world!
To get started all you need to do is register with the website and login! You can then login via the website and upload photos and coordinates of your sightings.
Or if you want to do it directly from your smart phone, guess what? There’s an app for that! http://www.herpmapper.org/mobile/mapper. Using the app uses your phone’s location services to select the GPS coordinates and prompts you to use the camera to take photos to sync to the database. Herpmapper.org also has great options to query their database. You can determine sightings by taxon, location, and date. A quick search for box turtle sightings in North Carolina returned 144 records! When you and your family and friends come across everyone’s favorite terrestrial turtle be sure and help us out by logging your sighting to Herpmapper! We’re also asking for feedback about the Herp Mapper site, which we are trying out. Please send all feedback to us at boxturtleproject@uncg.edu. Users might also want to keep paper records of their sightings and reports.
You must upload a photo, so please take a picture of the top shell and the bottom shell and upload them both. Refer to the pdf ‘Sexing Box Turtles‘ for information on how to tell male from female and other information. This option allows you to become a Citizen Scientist and assist scientists but does not require a long term commitment or any commitment at all for that matter! You do not need to contact us, simply register and enter the data when you can.
B. High level of commitment: I am willing to make a long term commitment to the project (at least 5 years) and want to collect data on turtles I encounter in my study site (your own property or other site) and am willing to attend the Project Leader Training, offered in March or April every odd year. I am willing to enter data every year on the turtles I encounter.
Okay, then you are interested in becoming a Project Leader. This requires a long term commitment, measuring equipment, face-to-face training in March or April at Haw River State Park offered by the Box Turtle Collaborative (BTC), and a willingness to meet the deadlines for data entry. The BTC may or may not have funds to help you purchase the scales, calipers and thermometer needed to collect data, though we have been able to fund these items for most projects so far. We cannot guarantee funding. The data collection equipment costs about $120-150. If we can cover these costs, we will. If you want to become a Project Leader please contact us at boxturtleproject@uncg.edu.