BR- Turtle-Conservation

VANCOUVER — It’s been a bumper year for the Greater Vancouver Zoo’s project to help save the endangered western painted turtle, which is the only native freshwater turtle in British Columbia.

The zoo’s director of animal care Menita Prasad says it released more than 550 baby turtles in the past year after incubating eggs gathered from the wild to give them the best chance for survival.

But there’s still a long way to go for the decade long-project to boost the number of turtles, which are listed as an endangered by the federal government and red-listed in B-C, meaning they face the highest risk of extinction.

Prasad says the turtles face human and natural predators, plus competition from the invasive red-eared sliders, a turtle that is larger and is popular in the pet trade.

The zoo collects the eggs in the wild, then hatches and releases them once they’re big enough to make them hard to eat by predators, such as largemouth bass and bullfrogs.

Prasad says the zoo has freed around three thousand western painted turtles over the past decade.