Habitat loss, speeding cars and other hazards have reduced the population of the locally threatened Blanding’s turtle in the Northeast. Grassroots Wildlife Conservation has teamed up with local residents to safeguard the nests that the turtles make in their neighborhoods. Living on Earth’s Jenni Doering tagged along with GWC’s Bryan Windmiller and his team in Concord, Massachusetts to follow a mother turtle as she lays her eggs.

Climate change is impacting various animal species around the world, but painted turtles may face a particularly strange and formidable challenge. Host Steve Curwood talks turtles with Iowa State biologist Rory Telemeco.

Living on Earth's Resident Explorer Mark Seth Lender sometimes explores his own corner of Connecticut. Walking on the bank of the Waterhouse Brook, he happened by the nest of a Snapping Turtle, just as the hatchlings were scrambling out of the soft soil to face the perils and opportunities of life.

The tiny Blanding’s turtles that struggled out of the nest in summer are now getting a head start in life, fed and protected in school classrooms. Living on Earth’s Don Lyman visits the fifth-graders at the Carlisle (Massachusetts) School, and the two turtles they’re caring for, Tsunami and Squirtle.

Blanding’s turtles are considered a threatened species in Massachusetts, so Grassroots Wildlife Conservation is working to protect newly hatched turtles, as mortality is high in the first year. Living on Earth’s Don Lyman returns to the nest we observed in early summer with the biologists to find out how many eggs hatched, and help prepare the young turtles for their next adventure in local classrooms.

After raising Blanding’s turtle hatchlings all year, it’s time for a class of fifth-graders to send their charges back to the wild to make it on their own. Their care has given these threatened Blanding’s turtles a head start in life, and Living on Earth’s Don Lyman follows the children and the hatchlings to the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Concord, MA.