KALAMAZOO, Mich. — In 2010, an Enbridge Energy pipeline burst along the Kalamazoo River, resulting in one of the largest inland freshwater oil spills. Research shows the turtles that were relocated have returned home.
According to Joshua Otten, wildlife biologist and professor at Cornell College, the turtle population suffered the most from the spill. "When turtles surfaced to bask, they would come into contact with the oil, which coated their shells and skin."
Otten, other biologists, and volunteers dedicated a year and a half to cleaning and rehabilitating the turtles. The goal of the relocation efforts was to release the turtles in locations far enough away from the spill to prevent immediate impact.
Between 2010 and 2011, out of the 3,400 captured and cleaned turtles, over a thousand were relocated. Each was given a tracking chip to monitor data.
"For every turtle that we had captured, when they would get that permanent mark, we would record data on them, like the location, the sex of the turtle. When we could ... take a measurement on the shell size, we would take a measurement on the weight. And so we knew exactly where that individual was," he explained to FOX 17.
From 2018 to 2021, Otten found that the rehabilitation work was successful.
"We caught a large number of those turtles that we had to translocate to new locations, and seeing that their growth rates were continuing as normal showed that those individuals that had gone through that rehabilitation process, those individuals that had been relocated, were surviving well and had been able to find their way back home to that location that they knew was their home," he told FOX 17.
Otten believes that the Kalamazoo River turtle population is now stable.
He hopes there won't be another spill in the future, but if there are any issues that arise, he's confident that the research they've done will help future rehabilitation efforts.
READ MORE: Wildlife biologist remembers Kalamazoo River oil spill 13 years later
