By OLIVIA BERGMEIER
Salina Post
The ornate box turtle is a common symbol for education in many Kansas and Midwest classrooms, as it is the state reptile for both Nebraska and Kansas. However, many residents don't know that the Midwest is quietly losing one of its only two terrestrial turtle species.
At the Rolling Hills Zoo or RHZ, in Saline County, the Education Curator, Teagan Miller, regularly hosts events on animals with school children and brings along Amelia, the zoo's ornate box turtle.
She does this to spread awareness of ornate box turtles and that Kansas is rapidly losing them due to human intervention.
"Their numbers are declining rapidly, which is extremely sad," Miller said. "We should be stingy with them — they're cute and very important to our ecosystem."
Some contributing factors to their decline include plastic pollution and the illegal pet trade, where many poachers will find as many as possible and ship them overseas or even to another state in the U.S.
Miller said poachers will roll the turtles inside a paper tube and gamble on how many survive the journey. Kansas laws also made it easier for those wanting to sell box turtles, with the statute allowing residents to keep and handle five reptiles from the wild.
"That is one of the main things that we talk about to kids and anywhere we go because it's so important to know wild animals don't want to be your friend," Miller said. "They want to live their life. They want to do the same thing you do — go back to their home every day where everything is normal for them."
Normalcy for box turtles is a one-mile radius range on the prairie where an individual will protect a food and water source for almost their entire lifespan, which can reach about 30 years.
Even minor disruptions can be fatal for box turtles, as taking them from that one-mile radius home will send them searching for that home until they die from a predator or exposure.
One practice in Kansas that often disrupts ornate box turtles' lives is annual box turtle races at county fairs, holiday celebrations or other community gatherings.
Long-term change for ornate box turtles
RHZ Director of Development and Marketing Linda Henderson said in the last three years, the zoo, alongside a few other accredited zoos, began prioritizing the conservation of ornate box turtles in the state.
The zoos now spread awareness about turtle racing, encouraging many events to stop the practice altogether or sharing safe ways of continuing the long-standing tradition.
"Do those races first thing in the morning when it's cooler because they need that cooler climate — they are reptiles," Henderson said. "If you have them, keep them for a very short time in good care, and then return them to exactly where you found them."
Through this education and outreach by RHZ and other zoos in the state, Kansas law now states residents can only own two individual box turtles at a time.
The law changed from allowing residents to own five of any reptile at a time to now allowing five reptiles and only two of each type of species.
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Box turtles in the Kansas ecosystem
Although many Kansans who find box turtles on the road or in a field may see them as an adorable part of Kansas wildlife, they are also an essential species in their ecosystem.
Ornate box turtles have a diverse diet, feeding on everything from plants to carcasses of animals.
"They're part of the cleanup crew, which is the major one that we like to tell people," Miller said. "Carrion is all the dead animals on the roadside or just out there because they passed away — box turtles will eat that."
"That's part of cleaning up the environment, which is a really important thing people don't think of very often."
Box turtles also feed on insects, which helps control bug populations across the state. Many animals also rely on box turtles as part of their regular food source, including large mammals and birds of prey.
"When you take on specific species out, all those other species that rely on it diminishes, and then they pass away, and eventually, that does get up to us," Miller said. "It changes the entire ecosystem."
Miller and Henderson stressed that even though losing the state reptile on the surface may be the tragic loss of an interesting terrestrial turtle, it also disrupts the larger Kansas ecosystem and environment.