Wood turtles love the Marengo River and it’s surrounding habitats, laying their eggs in loose gravel near the river.  Unfortunately, they often lay their eggs in road ditches, giving raccoons a smorgasbord of newly laid eggs. It’s one of the reasons they are a state threatened species.

That’s why the Lincoln Community Forest and Turtles for Tomorrow built safe nesting sites in the forest.  These sites are gravel pads surrounded by electric fence to keep raccoons and other predators out.  One nest successfully hatched eggs last year which means that more females will be attracted to the site this year.

Volunteers with the Friends of Lincoln Community Forest will check out (monitor) the nesting sites every day in June to look for turtle nests.  Nests will be recorded, marked, and then in fall, inspected to see if the eggs hatched and baby turtles emerged.