Youth helps species at risk in Highway 400 expansion through Magnetawan

Magnetawan’s Terry Jones enjoyed learning how to do radio telemetry during his Robinson Huron community’s Species at Risk project this past summer. He plans to study Fish and Wildlife Technology next fall after another summer on the project.
Magnetawan’s Terry Jones enjoyed learning how to do radio telemetry during his Robinson Huron community’s Species at Risk project this past summer. He plans to study Fish and Wildlife Technology next fall after another summer on the project.

By Rick Garrick

Magnetawan’s Terry Jones is proud of the work he completed last summer for his Robinson Huron community’s Species at Risk project to help locate a Highway 400 expansion.

“The 400 highway is expanding and they are coming right through our reserve,” says the 22-year-old field technician for the Species at Risk project. “We are going to use some of this information to help the turtles and help the snakes so they can (locate) where the highway should be and what kind of preparations should be there, like culverts.”

Jones says specially-designed culverts are required to provide safe routes for turtles and snakes to travel under the highway corridor.

“(We need to) get special ones so the turtles will go underneath them instead of going up on the highway,” Jones says. “We have one of the worst spots in Canada for over-the-road mortality.”

Jones began working on the project with Species at Risk biologist Ryan Morin this past spring to monitor the population of three species at risk — the Massasauga rattlesnake, the Blanding’s turtle and the snapping turtle.

“We captured them, we took measurements to see how big they are and how old they are and then we would notch them and let them go,” Jones says. “We would go back a couple of weeks later to try to capture them and (from) all the ones that we had notched, we would kind of estimate the population.”

Jones enjoyed working on the project, noting he learned how to do radio telemetry.

“We would put radio trackers on the turtles, we let them go and we then would get this (telemetry) device and we would pinpoint where they were in the swamps,” Jones says. “We would find out how they were using their land and where they were spending their winter in the swamps.”

Jones says the Blanding’s turtles can travel up to six kilometres per day over land while the snapping turtles, which are bigger than the Blanding’s turtles, usually hide out in deep swamps or the lakes.

“They are bigger so they can survive in (the lakes),” Jones says about the snapping turtles. “They mostly head for bigger water (during the summer). We have a river near our reserve; they mostly go into that.”

Jones says the radio trackers were left on both species of turtles for the winter, noting the turtles hibernate in deep swamps under the bog.

“We tracked them up until they wouldn’t move anymore — it was probably late September, early October,” Jones says. “We found where they were hiding for the winter. There is enough power in (the radio trackers) to last the winter, so in the spring time we will take (the radio trackers) off.”

Jones says the Massasauga rattlers usually stay in the same area throughout the year.

“They don’t go in water, it’s more just on the bog, just on top of rock and soil,” Jones says. “They dig down into the cracks of the rocks. They stay put and they are alone, so they stay by themselves.”

Jones plans to study Fish and Wildlife Technology at Fleming College next fall after returning to work as the coordinator of field research at the Species at Risk project next summer.

“I always loved the outdoors and the reptiles, but I never knew I could get a job for it — it was really fun,” Jones says.