Of Amoebas and Turtles

Due to the snowstorm last night and the -40 wind chills, school was cancelled today. Unfortunately we did not get to the library to work on our history research on Third Avenue Pond, which was a shame, but hopefully I'll be able to get some time in on it tomorrow while PG is in classes. We did however, do some basic research on one of the indiginous species of our pond, the Common Snapping Turtle. Our particular snapping turtle is named Bob, and is (as described by others) "the size of a car door".

Bob has been a matter of concern to us not only because of what type of turtle he is, but because the pond is his home. The last thing we want to do is disturb him or worse, cause him to think about choosing a new territory. He's a true staple there, known for scaring the begeebus out of the high school students who use the pond for their canoeing lessons, as well as LATI students out in the kayak. Though we know they are omniverous, the turtles in the Upper Big Sioux watershed appear to have developed a taste for goslings, based on my observations (note to self - try to take body counts while surveying the pond this spring). As such we wanted to know if turtles who had becomed accustomed to more aggressively hunting live prey were more prone to attacks on people or other intruders into their territory.

Thankfully it appears that snappers who prey upon waterfowl have generally been known to attack ill animals; this would fit in very well with the goose populations that tend to congregate around the river, in numbers that I would consider to be overly dense for the size and depths of the waterbodies. That goslings would have a propensity for becoming sick or injured in that environment would only make sense. On top of that, the Third Avenue Pond is also close to the waterfowl pond at Bramble Park Zoo.

This video (I hope it works!) is of a snapper climbing the fence from the marsh behind the Third Avenue Pond into the Bramble Park Zoo goose pond. This pond is often used as a recovery area for injured geese and other waterfowl, so it could be seen as prime hunting ground. (Another note to self - contact zoo for evidence the turtles are hunting the goslings or injured birds.)


Anyway, back to our interest in the turtles. It turns out that there has been no substanciated attacks by turtles on swimmers unless they are cornered or poked at. They usually exhibit either curious or bored characteristics, like most reptiles would. Looks like we have nothing to fear from Bob, and I hope he chooses to hang around and swim with us. We'll still try to keep our distance from him in his home, though.

Since we were largely stuck at home, we spent a lot of time watching "House". There was an episode on about Naegleria fowleri, which first struck my interest after that poor fellow died from exposure at a Florida waterpark. Naegleria is also known as the "brain eating amoeba"; they crawl in through a swimmers nose and - well, eat your brain. PG and I talked about the possibility of these creatures living in our pond, and while they are mostly known to exist in temperate to tropical areas, there has been at least one case of them infecting people from imported water. Now I'm curious if they could survive in our environment at all, even though they likely do not naturally. I'm going to speak with my Microbiology teacher, Mona, next week to see if I can't grow and experimental colony in the lab at LATI.