In 2011 the Nature Trust succeeded in saving one of the best remaining refuges for Blanding’s Turtles in the province and has since expanded our protected land in this focus area. The Katewe’katik conservation lands now span four properties in the Medway River Watershed, including on McGowan Lake. These sites include large spans of undeveloped river and lake shoreline and extensive treed swamp, both of which are ideal habitat for Blanding’s Turtles.

The Blanding’s Turtle is one of the longest-lived and slowest maturing freshwater turtles in Canada. It is also a turtle in trouble. With a hatchling survival rate of less than 1%, and expanding cottage development and roads destroying habitat in the areas where these turtles live, the endangered turtles are struggling to survive.

By securing land in this focus area, turtles like Squirt, Lumpy, and Dilly (Blanding’s Turtles are marked, monitored, and named in Nova Scotia) can continue to live and nest in this focus area.

Protecting large and relatively intact natural landscapes is essential to provide the diversity of habitat conditions that turtles require for feeding, basking, nesting and overwintering. Turtles can travel five or six kilometers to meet these habitat requirements. Such large, interconnected natural areas are also essential for long-term population viability in light of potential climate change impacts on the landscape, potentially forcing populations to move to more suitable habitats over time.

This area also has strategic conservation value in building ecological integrity and connectivity. It provides important connectivity between two Blanding’s Turtle populations associated with the Medway River. It also builds the collaborative protected areas network that includes not only Nature Trust land but also the provincially protected Katewe’katik (formerly McGowan Lake) Wilderness Area.