Box Turtles Are Vanishing. Can Science Help Bring Them Back?

If you want to save turtles, you have to find them first... and that’s no easy task. Eastern box turtles are masters of camouflage, which makes them hard for predators to spot and even harder for scientists to study. 

That challenge is exactly what drives Maxwell Earle, a researcher at the Smithsonian’s Turtle Conservation Ecology Lab. Armed with tracking technology and a keen eye for detail, he looks for turtles across Virginia’s working landscapes, searching for answers about why this long-lived species is quietly declining.

In this Q&A, Earle describes a day in the life of a turtle researcher, and explains how studying animal movements can help protect a species at risk.

What is an Eastern box turtle, and what makes them interesting?  

Eastern box turtles are medium-sized terrestrial turtles found throughout much of the eastern woodlands of the United States. Box turtles have a cool physical adaptation: they have a carapace, which is the shell on the top, and a plastron, which is a shell on the bottom. On their plastron, they have a little hinge by their rib cage that allows them to close up entirely, shutting themselves out from the world. Unlike other turtles that tuck into their shells, these little guys tuck their shells around themselves. 

They're also in a group of turtles that live surprisingly long lives. Their average age in the wild is around 25 to 50 years, but there are instances of some individuals living for more than 100 years. They’re also almost entirely terrestrial, spending more than 90% of their time on land. And they have interesting color patterns on their shells that are unique to them, like fingerprints. 

Box turtles appear to be in decline in much of their range. How well do we understand the reasons behind the loss in numbers?  

Not well. We don't know the full picture because this species has such a large home range. 

In 2023, the Northeastern Box Turtle Working Group created a status assessment based on data from populations across the Northeast. They found enough evidence to suggest a general trend of declines.

But what we know about their populations and their ability to replenish themselves in an environment — how fast they reproduce versus how many are being poached, hit by cars, or cut up by farm equipment — it points to a general overall decline at a very fast rate. 

You're using radio telemetry to locate turtles and track their movements. How does this help with conservation? 

Telemetry is one of the many tools we use to understand turtle populations. If we understand their movement patterns, we can get closer to figuring out why populations might be declining. 

After we've found turtles in the wild, we glue two small pieces of tech to the animals’ shells: a VHF transmitter unit and a GPS logger. VHF is similar to the technology in a ham radio. We can use the transmitter to track a turtle from roughly half a kilometer to a kilometer away and physically find them in real-time. Then we use the GPS data logger, which records a location every hour from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at a resolution of about a 10-meter radius. It also logs temperature data.

Both of our main field sites in Virginia are within working landscapes (farms, fields, and pastureland), so we use this data to understand what territories the turtles are moving through, and under what temperature and precipitation conditions. When we pair that information with climate data from our field weather stations, we can ultimately get a clearer understanding of where, when, and why turtles move. 

What does a typical day of fieldwork look like? 

On a field survey day, we usually arrive around 7:45 a.m. and get started by 8. We’re working within these 250-acre plots that are forested but surrounded by working land. 

We spend about three to four hours walking through the plot, essentially meandering, and looking for turtles. If we find one, we stop, check if we’ve seen it before, take some measurements, photos, and GPS coordinates, then release it and keep going. 

The goal is to see how many times we can recapture turtles within a single season. That’s how we estimate population size — more recaptures help us understand how many turtles are out there. 

Usually, you’ve got a list of turtles you need to locate with your receiver. Each one has a unique radio frequency you home in on from up to about half a kilometer away. 

We do this roughly every three weeks per turtle, so we can swap out their battery-powered GPS loggers, which are recording their hourly movements. Sometimes you find a turtle in five minutes — it just happens to be right where you are. Other times it takes three or four hours. It really depends on the day. And how lucky you are. 

What do you hope to learn from the data you collect? 

We want to understand when and where turtles are moving in part so we can advise landowners on how to avoid accidentally killing the turtles. We’d like to have enough data to put out alerts that say, “this is a high turtle movement day, don’t mow if you can help it” or “better to brush hog at this time of year instead.” These working lands may be among the last strongholds for box turtles in this region, and farmers are key to helping them survive.

Do you plan to publish this data? 

Yep. The idea is to add to the broader effort of turtle conservation in the region. We want to advance population monitoring, develop uniform adaptive management strategies, and help build a regional turtle conservation community. 

So what’s the good news for box turtles? 

The good news is that we’re starting to identify some of the working lands — certain agricultural settings in Virginia — that may be strongholds for box turtle populations.

Also, it’s clear from our outreach efforts that many of the people who own and manage these lands genuinely care about local wildlife. There are a lot of conservation-minded folks in Virginia, and most farmers and landowners don’t want to hurt turtles. I don’t know many people who do. They’re willing to engage with our conservation efforts, and that gives me a lot of hope.

What organizations are you partnering with to help protect turtles?  

For turtle conservation in general, we work with groups like the Turtle Survival Alliance to extend the reach and impact of our conservation science for the benefit of threatened turtle species. That includes their turtle genomics work, such the Atlas of Turtle Genomes for Conservation. It also includes evaluating the conservation needs and best management practices for threatened turtle species.

We also partner with them on awareness and advocacy — they’re big on elevating turtle conservation as a whole. 

We also partner with local organizations specifically to protect Eastern box turtles right here in Virginia. For example, the Clifton Institute. They have a full-time box turtle technician who works alongside members of our own turtle team — helping with surveys, telemetry, all of it. We treat it like one big conservation community because that’s what it is. 

The Smithsonian’s Virginia Working Landscapes is another great partner. They’re especially important when it comes to advocacy and designing best management practices for private landowners. They’re our go-to group for helping translate our science into on-the-ground conservation action that landowners can actually apply. 

We also partner with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources on all of our local and many of our regional wildlife research projects. 

It’s a constellation of organizations. Everyone does a little bit, and together it makes a real impact.