The Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center is celebrating a major success story!
The center has four state-threatened eastern box turtles, including two that are twins, that just hatched.
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The mother turtle, suffering from a severe ear infection, laid her eggs in captivity while still recovering. The center was able to incubate the eggs, leading to this exciting hatching.
Baby turtles face many dangers, with survival rates to adulthood estimated at less than 0.1 percent.
To boost their chances, the baby turtles will spend the winter at the center, gaining weight to improve their odds.
The twins are much smaller than their siblings, weighing just 3 grams each. If they survive the coming weeks and start eating, they have a good chance of being released back into the wild. The center is providing intensive care to help them grow and close the size gap.
Since 2021, Virginia has made it illegal to keep eastern box turtles as pets, classifying them as a threatened species. Their populations are declining due to habitat loss from urban development, road mortality, poaching for the pet trade, and their naturally slow reproductive rate.
The center urges people who find turtles crossing roads to move them safely to the other side in the direction they were heading. Relocating turtles to unfamiliar areas can harm their survival, as they typically live within a small home range of less than a mile.
Twins in box turtles are extremely rare, occurring in about 1 percent of eggs. Limited space and resources make it hard for both to survive.