![]() ![]() “They’re great gardeners and they’re great janitors,” Berman said. Their deep, steady movement creates reservoirs in wetlands suffering drought conditions, which is essential to protecting tadpoles, small fish and other animals. Turtles also clean the bottom of lakes by eating pathogens, waste, debris, dead animals and more. ![]() As they move around their territories, turtles transfer seeds between upland and lowland, wetland and dry land, creating new habitats for 70 per cent of Ontario’s fish and wildlife. There are so many things Grace and her kin offer to Ontario. “Grace is simply magnificent.” At 38 centimetres and at least 125 years of age, Grace is the largest and oldest female turtle known of in Ontario. Berman said there’s only one other snapping turtle close to Grace’s age that has been spotted, a male in the Highlands, about 25 kilometres east of her home, making her the oldest female turtle known to Ontario. “I called her Grace because she’s got one eye and it is by grace that she is still alive,” said Berman, who has spent 25 years leading and developing large scale ecological projects for both nonprofit groups and governments, with the goal of wetland, landscape and species conservation. Next spring, Berman saw Grace emerge very near to where they had left her, and walk back to the main road. Berman and her team helped Grace onto a wheelbarrow and took her into the wetland to hibernate. In October 2018, Berman got a call from a seasonal cottager whose dog was barking at Grace after dark. Cottage-goers reported sightings under their docks. ![]() Drivers stopped for her on Gelert Road, a busy main street that dissects her territory. Others reported having seen her more recently on the school’s football field. A retired principal said he had seen Grace roaming around on the high school grounds back when he was a teenager. The Land Between is one of the last remaining turtle strongholds in Ontario and now, it’s widely known as Grace’s home.Īfter Berman and The Land Between alerted the community to watch out for Grace - describing her as “ancient, resilient and at the same time very vulnerable” - stories started pouring in. The Land Between is named after the bio-region that it serves, a stretch of landscape from the Georgian Bay coast to the Ottawa valley that hosts the only rock barrens in Ontario, the province’s highest mineral diversity, and, most importantly, over one-third of the province’s turtles. It took two biologists to lift her and get her away from the bus.īerman is the founder of The Land Between and the Turtle Guardians program, both non-profit volunteer groups dedicated to protecting turtles and their habitats. At 38 centimetres, Grace was the biggest turtle Berman had seen in nearly a decade of work in turtle conservation. She met Grace in spring 2018, when the turtle was sighted in front of a school bus. Leora Berman has the honour of being the human who introduced Grace to the world. She lives in Haliburton County, Ont., in a wetland next to three lakes, a hospital, a high school and an elementary school. The species can live over 275 years and, based on the size of her shell, Grace is at least 125 years old. Grace is older than any living human being, which makes sense because she’s a snapping turtle. Dracula by Bram Stoker was published and Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope device that produced moving pictures was patented. Pearson was born and Queen Victoria became the first monarch to mark 60 years on England’s throne. Around the time Grace was born, Ukrainian scientist Wademar Haffkine had just created a vaccine in record time to combat bubonic plague and was testing it on himself, the first human trial in history.Īs Grace took her first steps in the world, future prime minister Lester B. ![]()
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