February Lecture: Toronto Zoo – Blanding’s Turtle Restoration Program

Join us on February 2nd, 2025 at 2:30 pm for our February lecture: Toronto Zoo – Blanding’s Turtle Restoration Program.

The Toronto Zoo will provide an overview of their Blanding’s Headstarting Program.

Speakers: TBD

The Blanding’s turtle, a long-lived species with a life span of up to 80 years, is listed as a threatened species both provincially and nationally due to threats such as predation and habitat loss. Blanding’s turtles have inhabited the Rouge Valley for thousands of years; however, prior to the initiation of the Toronto Zoo’s headstarting program, Blanding’s turtles were facing almost imminent local extinction in this area, with as few as six individuals remaining. After over a decade of monitoring turtles what is now the Rouge National Urban Park (RNUP), the Toronto Zoo’s Adopt-A-Pond Wetland Conservation Program began to supplement the Park’s declining Blanding’s turtle population with headstarted juveniles as part of a comprehensive approach to species recovery, which also included habitat creation, academic research, stewardship initiatives, outreach and education efforts to save this species from local extinction.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87999673897?pwd=e91MkpYoDnuuUNfy9lB2tk4ISYyHwd.1

Meeting ID: 879 9967 3897

Passcode: 815155

Dial by your location

  • +1 647 374 4685 Canada
  • +1 647 558 0588 Canada

Meeting ID: 879 9967 3897

Passcode: 815155

Find your local number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kcQTogqzaV

This event is part of our free monthly lecture series. TFN members enjoy advance notice of upcoming lectures and follow-up commentary in our newsletter. Not a member? Learn more about the benefits of membership now!

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Toronto Field Naturalists wishes to acknowledge this Land through which we walk. For thousands of years, the Land has been shared by the Wendat, the Haudenosaunee, and the Anishinaabe. Toronto is situated on the Land within the Toronto Purchase, Treaty 13, the traditional and treaty Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. This territory is also part of the Dish with One Spoon Wampum, a covenant agreement between Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Wendat peoples and allied nations to peaceably share the land and all its resources. Today, the Land is home to peoples of numerous nations. We are all grateful to have the opportunity to continue to care for and share the beauty of this Land.