Turtles Thrive in Suburbia, Less So in Nature Preserve

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turtle-webSoccer moms and Little League dads aren’t the only ones living the good life in the ‘burbs. Eastern long-necked turtles in the Australian suburbs are living fat and happy, according to new research in the journal Biological Conservation.

The finding came as a surprise to the research team. According to BBC News:

“We expected suburban turtles to move around less than those on the nature reserves in response to the many threats that suburban turtles could encounter, but we found the opposite,” says Dr John Roe, a member of the research team from the Institute for Applied Ecology at the University of Canberra, Australia. “Suburban turtles traveled longer distances and occupied home ranges nearly three times larger than turtles in the nature reserves.”

Seems like suburbanites are forcing McMansions and longer commutes on turtles now too.

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Image: flickr / reggie35

October 21st, 2009 12:06 PM Tags: , ,
by Brett Israel in The Wide (& Strange) World of Animals | 2 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

2 Responses to “Turtles Thrive in Suburbia, Less So in Nature Preserve”

  1. 1.   Turtles Thrive in Suburbia, Less So in Nature Preserve | bootlegers101 Magazine Says:

    [...] See the article here: Turtles Thrive in Suburbia, Less So in Nature Preserve [...]

  2. 2.   His_wife46 Says:

    It is simply a commod- ity. ,

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