Staff members at the Big Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant had seen snapping turtles on site before — but last spring they became primary caretakers.
"We've had nests in the past many times," says Brian La Bute, senior operations manager at the plant in Amherstburg, owned by the Ontario Clean Water Agency. "A lot of times you don't even know they're there until raccoons dig them up and scavenge the eggs."
Last May, plant staff saw a female snapper laying eggs. "Mom decided she wanted to lay them right in the middle of the gravel driveway," says La Bute.
Mother turtles do not watch over their eggs. "The operators saw the mother laying the eggs, so they took them under their wing and covered the nest with a big metal grate so the other animals couldn't get at them," says La Bute.
The first babies dug their way out on August 10, and a dozen emerged over a few days. Plant staff carried them about 200 yards to Big Creek, an environmentally sensitive wetland area, believing they wouldn't have survived the journey on their own.
"Snapping turtles are becoming an endangered species now," says La Bute. "So we try and help them out when we can."
