Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) select populations COSEWIC assessment and status report 2016

Official title: COSEWIC Assessment and Status Report on the Blanding’s Turtle Emydoidea blandingii Nova Scotia population and Great Lakes/St. Lawrence population in Canada - 2016

Blanding’s turtle

Blanding’s Turtle
Photo: © Scott Gillingwate

Blanding’s Turtle - Nova Scotia population
Endangered
2016

Blanding’s Turtle - Great Lakes/St. Lawrence population
Endangered
2016

Table of contents

List of figures

  • Figure 1. Adult Blanding’s Turtle, front view.
  • Figure 2. Adult female Blanding’s Turtle, ventral view.
  • Figure 3. Well-patterned hatchling Blanding’s Turtle.
  • Figure 4. Blanding’s Turtle distribution in North America.
  • Figure 5. Minimal predicted distribution of invasive Phragmites a. australis by 2030.

List of tables

  • Table 1. Blanding’s Turtle demographics and subpopulation sampling efforts from across the Canadian range.
  • Table 2. Summary of subpopulation trends and threats across the Canadian range.
  • Table 3. Blanding’s Turtle protection, status and ranks.

List of appendices

Appendix 1

Appendix 1 - List of figures
  • Figure 1. Ecoregions (OMNRF 2007) clipped to the distribution of Blanding’s Turtles in Ontario digitized from Ontario Reptile and Amphibian Atlas records.
  • Figure 2. Wetland loss by township across the Lake Ontario/Lake Erie and Lake Simcoe/Rideau ecoregions within the range of Blanding’s Turtles in Ontario from pre-settlement (~1800) to 2002. Wetland loss data from Southern Ontario Wetland Conversion Analysis Final Report.
  • Figure 3. Stacked area plot of the estimated proportions of density-weighted Blanding’s Turtle habitat in Ontario partitioned by ecoregion and plotted against year (See Tables 2, 3).
Appendix 1 - List of tables
  • Table 1. Area of wetland land cover classes within the range extent of Blanding’s Turtles in Ontario broken down by ecoregion.
  • Table 2. Decline in density-weighted Blanding’s Turtle habitat across the range extent in Ontario.
  • Table 3. Trends in the distribution of density-weighted habitat of Blanding’s Turtles across ecoregions and time periods scaled
  • Appendix 1 Table - Blanding’s Turtle adult densities from mark-recapture studies in Ontario (provided by Teresa Piraino).

Appendix 2

  • Appendix 2a. Threats assessment worksheet, Blanding’s Turtle, Nova Scotia population.
  • Appendix 2b. Threats calculator - Great Lakes/ St. Lawrence population

Appendix 3

Appendix 3 - List of figures
  • Figure 1. Observed road kill rates for adult and subadult Blanding’s Turtles from systematic road surveys along four roads in Ontario expressed as percentiles.
  • Figure 2. Estimated population decline in adult Blanding’s Turtles from road kill over three generations (120 years), starting from a population of 25,000 adults and based on annual kill rates of 0.2, 0.25, and 0.3 turtles/km.
  • Figure 3. Estimated population decline in adult Blanding’s Turtles from road kill over three generations (120 years), starting with a population of 45,000 adults and based on annual kill rates of 0.2, 0.25, and 0.3 turtles/km.
Appendix 3 - List of tables
  • Table 1. Amount of various road types in 1x1 km grid squares with recent records of Blanding’s Turtles.
  • Table 2. Observed road kill rates for Blanding’s Turtles calculated from the total number of large juveniles or adults found dead on the road each year, divided by the number of kilometres of road surveyed.
  • Table 3. Observed kill rates/km for Blanding’s Turtles from two different methods.
  • Table 4. Estimated amount of time for a 50% decline in the Ontario adult Blanding’s Turtle population based on three road kill rates and two population size estimates.

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