Patient Spotlight: Macchiato

This is the tale of Macchiato, a young spotted turtle in our care. Macchiato recently hatched from the incubator, and will be with us through the Winter until release in Spring 2024.

Warning: This story is equal parts sad as it is uplifting. We deal with a lot of tragic situations in wildlife rehabilitation, and while we think it’s important to share patient stories, we want you to be prepared for what you are about to read. Readers sensitive to graphic content might find the following story disturbing.

Macchiato, a spotted turtle, after first emerging from the egg

Macchiato after first emerging from the egg

Macchiato’s mom was a beautiful spotted turtle, whom we named Lacey. Lacey was out laying her eggs on the evening of June 11th when a car drove by and hit her. It wasn’t until the morning when Lacey's finder came across her in the road, and called us to see if she could be helped. The finder had not yet collected Lacey, and wasn’t sure if she was alive or not. As we remotely walked through collecting her and placing her in a cardboard box, the finder became increasingly suspicious that Lacey had already passed, and when we received a photo, we agreed.

This did not change our plan of action. We prefer to always admit patients, even if they appear unrecoverable, for a few reasons -

We have seen turtles recover from incredibly severe injuries. We do not give up until they do.
Even if the worst case scenario is true and they are going to pass away, turtles will last a long time on the side of the road before succumbing to their injuries, and if admitted we can administer pain medication, and provide a comfortable, quiet location for them to pass.
During nesting season, even if a female succumbs to her injuries, if she has eggs we can retrieve them from the oviduct and incubate them so that at least her offspring will live on.

Macchiato, a spotted turtle, hiding in the greens

Macchiato hiding amongst kale

To elaborate on the last point, NOTHING replaces an adult turtle. Turtles are critical parts of the ecosystem, and are vital to their local populations, and need to remain in the wild to contribute to the health of the population. Our goal is always to save the adult first and foremost. Turtles don’t reach reproductive maturity until much later in life, akin to humans, with spotted turtles reaching reproductive maturity at the age of 11-14 years. That means they have to live that many years before even considering laying eggs and making the next generation! In addition, while estimates will depend on the region where the turtles are from, one estimate is that 99% of hatchlings will not make it to adulthood.

With all that stacked against them, how have turtles been on this planet for millions of years? The answer is LONGEVITY. Longevity is how a healthy population of turtles persists over time. It’s critical to the population that reproductive females be left in the wild to reproduce throughout their lifetime to increase the odds of her offspring making it to adulthood. Turtles live a very long time relative to other species, with spotted turtles known to live to be over 100 years old! If reproducing throughout her lifetime, suddenly it doesn’t seem like such a bad evolutionary plan. The problem is all the human-derived causes that are challenging turtles in unprecedented ways, the most glaring issue being habitat loss.

Macchiato, a spotted turtle, emerging from the egg

Macchiato emerging from the egg

When Lacey arrived our worst suspicions were confirmed - Lacey had already passed. Bittersweet, as you hope their passing is quick if that is the trajectory they are on, but it always weighs heavy on our hearts when we cannot save a patient. Her body was already being consumed by all sorts of invertebrates. While two eggs were visible outside of her body, the others appeared to be within the oviduct still. After being sure there was no chance that mom could be saved, we got to work collecting the remaining eggs.

There were two eggs stored within the oviduct that had not been ruptured. We placed the extracted eggs inside our incubator. Shortly after one of the eggs shriveled and was clearly not viable. The other egg however looked promising, and we continued to incubate, crossing all our fingers that one day a turtle would emerge from this little egg! (spotted turtles have the tiniest little eggs, just like them)

Spotted turtles have temperature-dependent sex determination. All of New Hampshire’s native turtle species, except wood turtles, have temperature-dependent sex determination. This means the temperature they are incubated at will determine if they are male or female. We cannot tell sex when they are hatchlings, but we could tell if we had set the incubator at the higher/lower range of temperatures. We opted to set the temperature in the middle of the range, so it would be a mystery if Macchiato was a male or female spotted turtle.

Macchiato, a spotted turtle, resting on an artificial log

Macchiato resting on an artificial log

After 75 days, we were ecstatic when we found a little spotted turtle trying their hardest to get out of that shell! Macchiato had successfully pipped, making a slit in the shell with their egg tooth, a sharp point on the top of their beak that is present only when a hatchling first emerges. It’s important to let them emerge on their own, so we left Macchiato to finish the process. After many attempts, Macchiato successfully emerged from the egg on their own. It was July 30th. Happy Birthday Macchiato!

We were through the moon. For the reasons we already discussed, the birth of Macchiato does not replace mom. But, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, at least a little piece of her will live on in Macchiato, and make something out of an otherwise heartbreaking situation. We will be keeping Macchiato through the winter and releasing them next Spring (2024), with the hope of increasing their size to where they are more able to evade predators, and increasing the chance they’ll make it to adulthood. We are so proud of Macchiato and their resilience, and so thankful for Lacey’s final gift to this world.

Spotted turtles are one of our “listed” species in New Hampshire, meaning they are endangered or threatened to become endangered. Spotted turtles are in the imperiled category. There are many ways we can protect spotted turtles like Lacey. On a broader level, land protection is the best way we can possibly protect turtles. Most issues turtles are facing boil down to one core issue: habitat loss. There’s no better way to protect turtles than by protecting their homes. In addition, if you own land abutting wetlands, you can work with NH Fish and Game to create artificial nesting habitat. Aside from land protection, this is one of the best ways to help female turtles, because they often have to travel far for suitable nesting spots, and the further they travel, the more likely they are to enter roads, risking themselves. Reach out if you’d like to be connected with NH Fish and Game’s biologists to see if where you live may be a good candidate for a nesting spot!

In our How to Help Turtles blog post we have listed additional ways we can all be good neighbors to turtles, and see our Helping a Turtle Cross the Road blog post to learn how to help a turtle get to safety if you find them in the road. Taking the time to help a turtle cross can literally be a matter of life and death for them. If the person who hit Lacey had called us and arranged to have her seen, she may have lived. We are so grateful for all the people in our amazing community who have been looking out for turtles and helped them cross, or if injured took the time to find a rehabber, or just reached out for advice when not sure. As a community we can work to mitigate some of the impact our kind is having on these amazing creatures, but we cannot do it without you.

Save the turtles!