The founder of a nonprofit that protects turtles and their habitats, Leora Berman has revealed that there hasn’t been a confirmed sighting of Grace – a one-eyed, roughly 10-kilogram, more-than-a-century-old female snapping turtle since September 2021, when she was spotted returning to her winter hibernation site in the Municipality of Dysart et al, located nearly 300 kilometres west of Ottawa.
“It’s hard to talk about,” Berman said of Grace’s prolonged absence despite “the entire community watching” for her in 2022.
However, Berman’s group, Turtle Guardians, hasn’t given up the search just yet. “We’ll certainly be looking for Grace in the next few years,” she said.
“But we feel it’s unlikely we’re going to see her again because it’s highly unusual not to see a turtle who has such regular habits.”
Berman disclosed that Grace’s carapace measures about 38 centimetres, “which makes her a very old turtle” — at least 125 years. She is the oldest recorded female snapping turtle south of Algonquin Park from the Georgian Bay coast to the Ottawa Valley, Berman said.
“I thought she was pretty gorgeous,” she said.
Reports have it that a bus driver first alerted Turtle Guardians to Grace when she was in the middle of rush hour traffic. Berman said since then, the group has enlisted locals to help keep track of Grace, including putting up posters and offering $125 gift cards for confirmed sightings, with “many, many reports” over the years.
However, the trail grew cold in 2022, which has Turtle Guardians concerned about what may have happened to Grace.
Berman noted that the wetlands in Haliburton, Ont., where Grace routinely hibernated have been gradually filled in in recent years.
“We didn’t see her after the site was filled. I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” Berman said.
Harping on the development, Murray Fearrey, the mayor of Dysart et al, said in an email statement that he was aware Grace had not been seen for some time, that he understands the value of turtles to the ecosystem, but that he did not know why she’s gone missing.
When asked about the filling in of the lands, he said the area “has been a work in progress for several years” but that the municipality’s official plan and current policies on wetlands are now “much more restrictive and protective to all species.”
Meanwhile, Berman recently revealed that “I called her Grace because she’s got one eye and it is by grace that she is still alive”.
