{"id":356004,"date":"2026-09-24T20:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T20:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/356004\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T20:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T20:04:14","slug":"tiny-vulnerable-turtles-get-a-fresh-start-on-staten-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/356004\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny, vulnerable turtles get a fresh start on Staten Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dozens of tiny turtles got their first touch of the wild Tuesday as Staten Island conservationists released native diamondback terrapins into the creeks of Fresh Kills Park as part of a head-start program aimed at giving the vulnerable species<\/a> a better chance at survival.<\/p>\n

The Fresh Kills Park Alliance,<\/a> in cooperation with NYC Parks, the Staten Island Zoo<\/a> and city and state agencies, gathered to re-release over 45 adorably tiny diamondback terrapins \u2014 all about the size of a silver dollar \u2014 into the West Shore park\u2019s local waters.<\/p>\n

It was quite the shell-abration, as humans of all ages, including student volunteers from local schools and grown-up turtle experts, quietly cheered on the terrapins as they made a beeline from their aquarium tanks to the wild waters of Fresh Kills.<\/p>\n

\"turtlesThe terrapins preparing for their big trip back to Freshkills Park.Photo by Christian Gueits<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an exceptional year. It wasn\u2019t just a bunch of park enthusiasts taking these turtles and putting them back into the main creek, but it was so many students that we had from our environmental leadership here in Staten Island,\u201d said Mark Murphy, president of the Fresh Kills Park Alliance. \u201cThe kids from St. Clare\u2019s School and the kids from the New York Center for Interpersonal Development program all came out to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

The terrapins came from eggs laid in the park in June and July of this year. After incubating at the zoo as part of its Staten Island Terrapin Project, the hatchlings emerged during the first week of September before Tuesday\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

\"\"Heading toward the water.Photo by Christian Gueits<\/p>\n

The program is especially important at Freshkills Park, where an abundance of predators has been a key factor in the terrapin\u2019s decline.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe at Fresh Kills Park, which is the brand new piece of land that we are developing out here on the old Fresh Kills Landfill, is an area where the turtles will lay eggs, but they will be 100% predated \u2014 or eaten \u2014 by predators and will never be able to make it back into the wild,\u201d Murphy said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Murphy explained that foxes and raccoons are particularly problematic because they have few natural predators in the area.
\n\"\"Getting a little help entering the water.Photo by Christian Gueits\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are wiping out entire species,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why the diamondback terrapin is a species of concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

To give the turtles a fighting chance, conservationists monitor where mom terrapins lay their eggs and protect the nests with chicken wire.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we identify where a diamondback terrapin mother lays her eggs, we place an exclosure on it,\u201d Murphy explained. \u201cThe chicken wire exclosure goes on top until the following day when the zoo team can get out here, dig it up and bring it back to the zoo\u2019s veterinary team, where they will incubate them in a specialized environment under lights, in special machines, and make sure that they survive. We\u2019re giving them every chance to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the turtles reach the release stage, they are returned to the water to join other larger, more experienced turtles who know a thing or two about living in nature.
\n\"groupSt. Clare\u2019s School students assisted in the program.Photo by Christian Gueits\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bigger terrapin is a robust swimmer,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cBut the nests themselves, when they\u2019re eggs, the fox will come in and just rip them up and eat them right then and there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal of the ongoing head-start program is to prevent that, thus giving the terrapins enough early protection to eventually survive on their own.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are protected and camouflaged and will be able to survive and thrive,\u201d Murphy said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dozens of tiny turtles got their first touch of the wild Tuesday as Staten Island conservationists released native…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[115395,3242,42700,9,24,63,134,136,135,52026,71557],"class_list":["post-356004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-diamondback-terrapins","tag-environment","tag-freshkills-park","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-staten-island-zoo","tag-turtles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}