Celebrating40Years in the Outdoor Classroom - The Chewonki ...

On My Mind
Turtle Seasons
Lynne Flaccus
Almost everyone at Chewonki knows I
have a passion for turtles. Greg and Kyle
would call it an obsession. I am simply
amazed by turtles—their beauty and
their evolutionary history.
Each of us marks the seasons in our
own way, and my seasons are remembered
and marked by turtles. In spring I
look forward to ice-out and the first
warming rays of sun, when the tempera-
Manage Your Household Waste
RUTH POLAND, SCIENCE AND
SUSTAINABILITY FELLOW
“Reduce, reuse, recycle”—it’s been the
mantra of the Green Movement ever since
the first Earth Day in 1970. While there is
much to celebrate about recycling,
garbage generation is still rising. Today
the average American generates 4.6
pounds of trash daily, up from 3.25 in
1970. This translates to 251 million tons of
garbage a year. Managing this volume
raises a host of issues, including greenhouse
gas production, pollution, land use,
social and environmental justice, and
exploitation of natural resources to
replace the things we throw away.
To make matters worse, much of our
garbage doesn’t even make it to landfills,
leading to environmental calamities such
as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: a
swath of ocean twice as large as Texas
GREG SHUTE
tures rise enough that the wood turtles
emerge; April is the best time to find
them, before riparian vegetation
provides cover. The painted turtles
appear later, and about the time the
snapping turtles also emerge. The
painted turtles, with their black shells
shining and twinkling in the late
morning sun, bask on logs and rocks.
Though easy to spot from a distance,
they are wary this early.
June brings nesting season for
Maine’s turtles and means more turtles
crossing roads and wandering in search
of nest sites. When I’m traveling, my
eyes are glued to the roads so I can stop
and help turtles cross to the other side
safely. One June day traveling down
Route 1 with Kyle and a friend of his, I
pulled over and did a U-turn to go back
and rescue a turtle. Much to Kyle’s
embarrassment, the turtle turned out to
be a bagel. In my mind, everything on
the road in June is a turtle in need of
help!
Summers are marked by explorations
through long grass and alders along
riverbanks, or canoeing quiet pond
coves. A perfect day off is one spent
“turtle hunting.” Just to look for, hold,
and admire a turtle, and then release it, is
one of my favorite things to do. This
FOR SUSTAINABILITY
that’s filled with floating plastic (listen to
Charles Moore’s talk at www.ted.com).
So what can we do to improve? First,
we need to educate ourselves and others.
Some great resources include two short
films: Isla de las Floras (a Brazilian film
with subtitles) and The Story of Stuff
(available at www.storyofstuff.com). For
some incredible visuals, check out
www.chrisjordan.com and click on his
artwork “Intolerable Beauty.”
Second, we can throw away less. You
can reduce your garbage generation by
practicing the following:
Compost—Biodegradable goods
represent over 50 percent of our garbage!
See www.composters.com for tips on how
to get your pile started.
Recycle—Call your local recycling or
redemption center to find out what they
process. Visit www.obviously.com/recycle
for more general info.
Reduce—Buy items with minimal
packaging. Unnecessary packaging of
food and other goods is a major cause of
increased garbage production in recent
decades. Write to companies that use
year was marked by four turtles that
were each missing feet or legs, all healed
and healthy. Sometimes these
appendages are eaten by raccoons or
otters, but as long as the turtles don’t
lose too much tissue, they manage to
heal and move on. Each turtle I find tells
a story, even if I can’t read all of it.
When fall arrives I once again watch
the roads for those turtles wandering
back to their winter hibernacula, or
young turtles that may be hatching late
in the season. There are always a few
warm fall days when turtles take
advantage of the low hanging sun to
warm and feed before their long winter
under the ice. A warm November day
has not stopped me from jumping into
the icy water to check out a basking
musk turtle—a brisk swim for the reward
of handling a usually secretive turtle.
In another month or so, I will see
turtles only in books and in my dreams
until next April. Maybe one day I will
learn from the turtles how to appreciate
the warm sunny days at a turtle’s pace
and perspective.
Lynne Flaccus is Chewonki’s head naturalist.
She lives in Alna, Maine, with her husband,
Wilderness Programs director Greg Shute,
and their son, Kyle.
HOUSEHOLD WASTE
excess packaging and let them know your
thoughts; they provide this packaging
because they think consumers want it.
Reuse—The little things count. Bring
reusable bags to the store, get clothes
and furniture at thrift stores or have swap
parties with friends, and close the
recycling loop by buying recycled goods
whenever possible.
For more tips and info on the 3Rs, visit
www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve.
Finally, we can get involved in town
and government policy to address the
issue using a top-down approach. Look
for opportunities to incentivize better
waste management, such as supporting
“pay as you throw” programs, in which
communities charge for garbage bags or
waste removal. These programs provide
financial incentive to decrease your
volume of household trash.
The bottom line: Decreasing the amount
of landfill-bound garbage you produce is
one of the best things you can do to
reduce your personal environmental
impact.