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| Thursday, June 12, 2014
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Final Countdown!
Page 3: Remembering George Tidball
PAGE 23
School strike returns this Friday Rotating walkout in Langley for third week By MONIQUE TAMMINGA Black Press
BRENDA ANDERSON PHOTO
Andrea Gielens, a species at risk biologist, knows there is a small population of western painted turtles living in this pond at Campbell Valley Park in south Langley. She is currently working on a project at the Greater Vancouver Zoo in Aldergrove which aims to return 73 juvenile turtles to the wild this August.
Protecting the painted turtle By BRENDA ANDERSON Black Press
The quiet country pond is just a short walk across a field from busy 16 Avenue in South Langley. Despite the relatively easy access, it’s quiet here on a cool, late winter morning. Even birds are scarce — perhaps frightened off by a pair of visitors. A light breeze gently ruffles the surface of the water, but it’s what Andrea Gielens believes is hidden beneath the waterline, and along the grassy banks that is making waves within the zoological community. The pond, part of Campbell Valley Park, is home to a small number of western painted turtles. Named for the colourful and elaborate markings on their undersides, the turtles, which are native to the region, are classified as a species at risk of extinction. In Washington and Oregon states as well as in B.C.’s Interior, western painted turtles populations
are stable. But that is not the case here, said Gielens. In addition to the Langley park, a few individuals remain on the Sunshine Coast and at an Agassiz farm. But thanks to the introduction of another, more aggressive species of turtle — the red-eared slider — the number of western painted turtles in coastal populations has dwindled to the point that human intervention has been deemed necessary. Gielens, a biologist who specializes in species at risk, is employed by Guelph, Ontario-based Wildlife Preservation Canada. She is currently working at the Greater Vancouver Zoo in Aldergrove — about a mile from where she grew up — on an ambitious project which aims to return 73 juvenile western painted turtles to the wild later this summer. For now, the turtles are being kept in black plastic tubs inside a small heated barn at the zoo, where they were hatched last August. Since then, their only job has been to eat and
grow large enough to be released safely into the wild. Normally, the turtles would hibernate, frozen solid through the winter, but if these creatures had been left to do that, “chances are a lot wouldn’t survive,” Gielens said. Rather than risk losing more of the already endangered hatchlings, the turtles were brought indoors and kept awake through the winter, being fed spongey cubes of minced seafood, fortified with a calcium supplement. Once a week, they gobble down a treat of crickets, mealworms, bloodworms and brine shrimp. Gielens and her colleagues — two Greater Vancouver Zoo employees — share the duties of caring for their tiny reptilian charges. The project is modeled closely on a successful program that has been going on in the U.S. for the past 20 years.
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SEE: Page 3
It will be a long weekend for Aldergrove students this week. The teachers’ strike continues with Langley schools behind picket lines on Friday, June 13. However, the strike may morph into a full-scale walkout, as teachers voted Monday and Tuesday as to whether step up job action. The B.C. Teachers Federation says it will give parents 72 hours notice, but it is possible that there could be a full-scale school strike by Monday. The school calendar calls for classes to continue until Thursday, June 26. In the meantime, the BCTF is saying it is running out of strike pay for teachers. The district announced on Monday that students’ report cards will be given out but they will not look anything like the ones they are used to. Provincial exams will go ahead but may be supervised by administration. And summer sessions are still planned to go ahead. SEE: Page 4
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