Turtle Raised in a Massachusetts Classroom Just Became a Grandmother

After nearly two decades of tracking eggs, raising hatchlings in classrooms and monitoring young turtles back in the wild, Massachusetts conservationists reached a milestone last week that they had been waiting a generation to see: a Blanding's turtle raised by the program has produced offspring of her own, and two of those hatchlings have now been released into the wild.

The release took place on the evening of June 25 at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Concord, Massachusetts. Staff from Zoo New England, the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gathered with partners and volunteers to place the tiny turtles at the water's edge and watch them paddle off into the reeds.

The hatchlings are the offspring of a turtle known affectionately as "Ivy," or turtle #144. Ivy hatched in 2010 as part of the Great Meadows Blanding's turtle program. Her mother had walked more than 1.2 miles from the wetlands to an office park to lay eggs — the kind of long, roadside journey that puts female Blanding's turtles at high risk in a modern landscape.

After 10 months in the care of Stone Zoo, Ivy was released into the wild in 2011 and promptly went off the grid, unseen by researchers for more than a decade. She resurfaced during a 2023 monitoring survey — full-sized, thriving and reaching reproductive age for the first time. Zoo New England senior field conservationist Jimmy Welch began tracking her again with a small radio transmitter.

At 2:30 in the morning on June 25, 2025, Welch watched Ivy dig a nest in a meadow and lay eight eggs. Seven successfully hatched later that fall. Those hatchlings then spent the past year in the classrooms of local K-12 partner schools, where students raised them in warm aquariums with unlimited food as part of the HATCH program — Hatchling and Turtle Conservation through Headstarting.

Skipping a normal first winter of hibernation lets the tiny turtles grow much faster than their wild counterparts. By release, a headstarted hatchling is roughly the size of a wild three- or four-year-old, and researchers estimate the boost gives each turtle roughly a 40-times better chance of surviving to adulthood.

"Every year, we protect nests and release headstarted turtles to help restore these threatened populations," Welch said. "But the goal is to have the population become self-sustaining, and that can only happen when the next generation start laying eggs of their own. This release represents the fulfillment of that goal — living proof that our work is having a lasting impact."

Blanding's turtles are semi-aquatic freshwater reptiles known for their bright yellow throats, gently domed shells and remarkably long lifespans — often 70 years or more. They also mature slowly. Females typically don't reproduce until they are at least 14 to 20 years old, which is one reason recovering the species takes decades of patient work. In Massachusetts, most local populations number fewer than 50 individuals, and many are separated by roads that make natural mixing dangerous.

Since 2009, more than 22,000 Massachusetts students have raised rare turtles in their classrooms as part of the program, helping Zoo New England give over 1,400 Blanding's turtles a fighting chance at survival. Ivy's five remaining hatchlings are currently in classrooms across the state and are scheduled for release next spring.

"This is an important landmark for Blanding's turtle conservation in Massachusetts," said Mike Jones, state herpetologist for MassWildlife. "The release of these second-generation turtles is proof that long-term collaboration among Zoo New England, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MassWildlife, schools and the local community is making a lasting difference for this threatened species."

For the conservationists who first met Ivy as a hatchling in 2010, watching her babies swim into the same wetlands was the payoff for a very slow, very stubborn kind of hope.