S SOON AS THE SUN COMES UP , RARE TURTLES begin to arrive at a sandy bluff overlooking Hundred Acre Cove in Barrington . Two emerge simultaneously from the forest edge and wander around looking for the perfect nesting site . Three more appear in an adjacent field and quickly begin digging five-inch-deep holes in which to deposit their eggs .
The diminutive turtles , called diamondback terrapins , kick sand over themselves to camouflage their appearance , then dig a flask-shaped nest with their hind feet . When the hole is the right size , each turtle lays about fifteen eggs , covers them with sand and departs . The whole process takes about twenty minutes .
Hidden nearby in a small grove of trees they call the office , a team of volunteers and biologists — nearly all of them women — watch until the turtles are finished laying and begin to return to the marsh below . But before the terrapins can escape , the volunteers collect each one for processing , which involves measuring their shell , marking them so they can be recognized later and , in some cases , tagging them for future research . The turtles are then released to return to the cove . Each nest site is also flagged and covered with an exclosure , a wire basket-like device to keep predators from accessing the eggs . One of the terrapins collected on this June day was first identified in 1990 , the first year of this monitoring effort , making her more than thirty years old .
Overseeing this complex project is Kathryn Beauchamp , seventy-three , a retired nurse who spent most of her life caring for children in the intensive care units of hospitals in Providence , Boston and a half-dozen other cities around the country . With a few kind words , she instructs new volunteers about the procedures , encourages visiting students to participate , educates unwitting walkers who traipse through the site oblivious to the terrapins , and answers questions with a pleasant smile . When a terrapin is brought to the office , she demonstrates proper turtle-handling technique and walks newcomers through the processing steps so they can learn to do it themselves . Despite directing the operation with military precision , her tone is always welcoming . No one is ever left out .
“ My friends jokingly say that I transferred my love of taking care of children to taking care of turtles ,” says Beauchamp . “ I ’ ve always been very interested in nature , birds and gardening , and this seemed to fit right in . Once you get involved , it ’ s so heartwarming to see everyone working together to protect this turtle .”
Beauchamp started volunteering on the terrapin project in the spring of 2017 , just a few months after her retirement , and within two years she was transitioning into a leadership role .
“ It ’ s all about maintaining this species in Hundred Acre Cove ,” she says . “ With climate change , we ’ re watching the cove change . The islands of the marsh are slowly breaking apart and shrinking with the higher and higher tides , and the turtles need that marsh .”
Named for the diamond pattern on their shell , diamondback terrapins were discovered nesting at Hundred Acre Cove in the 1980s after not being seen there for more than twenty years . It was the only site in Rhode Island where the turtles were known to breed . Ranging along the East Coast from Cape Cod to Florida and around the Gulf Coast to Texas , it is the only turtle species in the United States that spends its entire life in brackish coves , lagoons and salt marshes , an anomaly between the sea turtles and freshwater turtles . Although a few additional breeding sites in the Ocean State have been discovered in recent years , the Barrington terrapin population remains the largest in the region by far , and scientists speculate that some of the newer breeding sites were started by turtles that dispersed from Barrington . Because of the species ’ rarity , the volunteers collaborate with scientists from the University of Rhode Island ( URI ) and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management ( DEM ) to monitor , protect and study the turtles as part of a comprehensive conservation effort .
62 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l JUNE 2021