That urban green spaces are highly valued features of cities for the people who live in them is obvious, given the enormous loss of economic opportunity they represent amid these centers of economic activity. Benefits of urban green spaces include sport and recreation, artistic inspiration, access to escape from the stress of the urban environment, and connections with natural environments (Chiesura 2004). These considerations become more important as human populations worldwide continue to shift increasingly away from rural areas toward urban environments (Sethi and de Oliveira 2015; United Nations 2015).

Native wildlife species inhabiting urban green spaces can be the source of either enjoyment or conflict for city dwellers (Michelfelder 2003; McCance et al. 2017). In amphibian and reptile studies, most of the emphasis on studies of native species inhabiting urban environments has been on anthropogenic impacts on the urban animals' life history, ecology, and population viability (Mitchell et al. 2008). Relatively few reptile and amphibian species may be regarded as sources of conflict, as nuisance species (e.g., venomous species and species that prey upon pets or livestock; Nowak et al. 2002; Eversole et al. 2014), but the benefits of people's experiences with native populations of amphibians and reptiles in urban environments have been little examined.

Presque Isle State Park (PISP) in Erie, Erie County, Pennsylvania, is a sandspit peninsula that extends 10 km into Lake Erie, nearly completely encircling Presque Isle Bay. The park's bays and connecting inland lagoons are inhabited by dense turtle populations, in particular the common map turtle (Graptemys geographica), which basks in large aggregations in late spring–early summer and again in late summer–early fall. In 2000, a park naturalist anchored a large eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides) tree trunk in the middle of Graveyard Pond for the turtles to bask on. Graveyard Pond is a lagoon in the park with a connecting channel to Misery Bay, a smaller bay connecting to Presque Isle Bay. The turtles of Graveyard Pond have since become a wildlife spectacle (Fig. 1). The basking aggregations are nearly exclusively G. geographica during peak basking in late spring and early summer, but painted turtles (Chrysemys picta) typically join the aggregation in low numbers by June and occasional spiny softshells (Apalone spinifera) and common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina) also bask. Many residents of Erie (population 101,786, 2010 US census) and nearby towns make frequent visits to the park and the basking aggregation is a well-known bio-phenomenon that the park's visitors seek out. They observe the turtles from the shoreline and watercraft, chiefly canoes and kayaks, but also from a free pontoon boat tour given by park volunteers on an hourly basis in summer months (Fig. 2; see also Lindeman 2013). The turtles are remarkably tolerant of boaters and typically allow close approach and observation throughout warm sunny days that draw heavy visitation.

View Figure

• Download as Powerpoint
• Download Figure

View Figure

• Download as Powerpoint
• Download Figure

I describe observations of park visitors observing turtles in Graveyard Pond both before and after construction of a turtle observation deck funded by the Presque Isle Partnership (PIP), a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to “enhance the Presque Isle visitors' experience by developing, funding, and implementing projects and programs on the Park, while protecting the natural environment” (www.discoverpi.com). Similar projects in other urban parks have the potential to advance the education of urban residents about their native aquatic turtles’ ecology and management and promote their support for turtle conservation.

METHODS

I sat on a picnic table at Graveyard Pond and observed park visitors on 2 Labor Day weekends, 4–5 September 2009 (Friday 1340–1635 hrs; Saturday 1150–1450 hrs) and 3 September 2018 (Monday 1045–1645 hrs), recording their observations of and interactions with the large basking aggregations. The park had high visitation rates on all 3 dates, consistent with holiday trends. I used the initial observations from 2009 in a presentation to the PIP Board of Directors on a plan to build a handicapped-accessible observation deck. Numerous preliminary plans were considered by an ad hoc subcommittee of PIP before a plan was approved to build, in 2012, a 4.9 × 4.9-m deck with a 9.1-m-long, 2.4-m-wide decked ramp and walkway that leads 45 m to a nearby parking lot at a public boat launch. The parking lot is gravel, but a concrete parking space marked for handicapped access was added at the point where the walkway joins the lot.

Design and construction of the deck were carried out in May and June of 2012 by donated labor, including PIP board members and employees of General Electric (GE) in Erie (Figs. 3 and 4). Employees of GE were encouraged to volunteer a series of their Friday workdays to work on the deck's construction.

View Figure

• Download as Powerpoint
• Download Figure

View Figure

• Download as Powerpoint
• Download Figure

The observation deck was built on the shoreline of Graveyard Pond approximately 40 m from where 2 new cottonwood trunks were anchored in place by chains attached to 5-gallon (19-l) plastic buckets filled with concrete. The logs were placed adjacent to the main route used by boats travelling through a no-wake zone from the public launch out toward Misery Bay and Presque Isle Bay. The deck was equipped with 2 fixed binocular viewfinders with ×10 magnification. Although such viewfinders commonly are coin-operated in public spaces, the decision was made to forego that feature to facilitate the park visitors' interaction with the basking turtles and also to reduce maintenance (e.g., as would be necessary for periodic emptying of coins from the viewfinders). One viewfinder was placed at a height accessible to wheelchair users and small children while the second is suitable for persons of typical adult height.

RESULTS

Visitor Responses to Turtles 4–5 September 2009. — At the time of this observation, a single large log, from the trunk of a fallen P. deltoides, was located centrally in Graveyard Pond and was visible from the park's main road and its adjacent Multipurpose Trail, approximately 80 m from the log's location. The average number of G. geographica basking on the log was 45.5 (range = 18–75, n = 29 counts) and up to 3 C. picta basked among them. I recorded comments pertaining to the turtles both from people boating on Graveyard Pond and people passing by on the Multipurpose Trail (Table 1).

Table 1. Comments overheard during observations of people watching turtles at Graveyard Pond on the Labor Day holiday weekend of 2009.

View Fullscreen

The turtles attracted observers along the shoreline equipped with cameras and binoculars (Fig. 2). I recorded 6 groups of pedestrians, 1 on bicycles, and 3 in vehicles who stopped to photograph the turtles. I also recorded 4 groups who photographed the turtles from canoes and kayaks. Cameras and binoculars are also much used by visitors on the hourly pontoon boat tours, which have long included the turtles of Graveyard Pond as a major attraction in their narration of the park's human history and natural history.

Cost and Financing of the Project and Donated Hours. — The total final cost of the turtle observation deck was $20,465.53 (in 2012 US$, equivalent to about $22,922 in 2020), with $3512 for design and manufacture of an interpretive sign and pedestal (Fig. 5) and most of the rest being for deck materials and construction. Costs for the handicapped access parking space were borne by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation of Natural Resources, the agency that contains the Bureau of State Parks. In total, 63 volunteers, mainly GE employees, worked for 764 person-hours over 16 dates between 27 April and 8 November of 2012; GE also paid for volunteer lunches and made a donation of $5000 toward the project to PIP.

View Figure

• Download as Powerpoint
• Download Figure

Visitor Responses to Turtles, 3 September 2018. — The new logs' location is not visible from the Multipurpose Trail, but canoers, kayakers, and visitors to the observation deck were observed watching and photographing the turtles. The average number of G. geographica basking on the 2 logs was 23.3 (range = 4–41, n = 14 counts) and 1 A. spinifera also basked among them during the late afternoon. I recorded 25 visitors in 14 groups of up to 5 people who used the turtle deck. Fifteen visitors used the deck's binoculars to view the turtles, 7 read the interpretive panel, and 3 photographed the turtles. I also recorded 29 canoers, kayakers, and paddleboarders in 11 groups of up to 5 people who approached the turtle logs, with 2 people taking photographs.

DISCUSSION

Construction of the turtle observation deck at Graveyard Pond helps to fulfill the PIP's mission of enhancing the experience of park visitors. The large basking aggregations at Graveyard Pond have become a well-known attraction at the park. People's perception of the turtles appears to be overwhelmingly positive and even respectful—boaters often seem to be inclined to keep their distance so that they may see but not disturb the turtles. I have also casually observed similar attraction to basking turtles at other sites at PISP, including Horseshoe Pond (where turtles bask on the supports of houseboats used by summer residents) and Lily Pond next to the park's main road and multipurpose trail.

Michelfelder (2003) argued that urban wildlife populations can shift from being appreciated aesthetically, as symbols of wild nature, to being thought of as part of an urban resident's extended sense of community. People visiting Graveyard Pond for the first time may respond in the former sense, but PISP is noted for its high rate of repeated visitation by residents of Erie and nearby towns. The park regularly draws 3–4 million daily visitors/yr—peak summer weekends and holidays often draw in excess of 40,000 visitors—in a county with a 2010 population of 280,584. I have met many people who profess to visit the park on a virtually daily basis (i.e., personally accounting for as many as 366 of the annual visits recorded).

Repeated visitors to the park may well consider the turtles as a sort of part of their community, as Michelfelder (2003) suggested. In this sense, it is perhaps the case that just as the turtles of Graveyard Pond have become habituated to human presence, park visitors have become habituated to the turtles' presence. Such a connection to wildlife can promote issues related to management and conservation (Miller and Hobbs 2002), not only of the park's turtle populations, but also for turtle populations throughout the United States and perhaps even worldwide.

I suggest that there is a vast potential for similar projects connecting people and freshwater turtles at other urban sites in the United States and around the world. The turtles of Graveyard Pond are clearly habituated to the presence of people, commonly tolerating their approach to within 10–20 m of the basking logs. Similar habituation has been described for a marina boat dock in western Tennessee (Lindeman 2013) and for painted turtles in the Mississippi River (Polich and Barazowski 2016). I describe below sites that I have visited in the United States that seemingly would be good sites for urban turtle observation projects.

Zilker Park in Austin, Texas. — Zilker Park is a 142-ha urban park at the confluence of Barton Creek and Town Lake on the Colorado River in Austin (2010 population 790,390). Part of Barton Springs has been made into a public swimming pool and the park can become quite crowded in the late afternoon with joggers and walkers and people renting canoes and kayaks. On one occasion in 1992, I counted 23 adult Texas river cooters (Pseudemys texana) basking in the crown of a tree that had fallen into Barton Creek, just a few hundred meters from its confluence with Town Lake. As a man paddled a rental canoe past the tree at close range, he became quite animated, directing the attention of the 2 young children in the canoe to the “tortugas grande” (big turtles), which warily observed the canoe's occupants but took no evasive action.

Pettibone Park in La Crosse, Wisconsin. — The park occupies approximately one-third of Barron Island in the Mississippi River between La Crosse (2010 population 51,320) and La Crescent, Minnesota (2010 population 4830). Lagoons that connect to the river have good pedestrian access and dense basking aggregations of 3 species of map turtles (G. ouachitensis, G. pseudogeographica, and G. geographica) and also painted turtles. There are also good views of basking turtles along the main river channel.

Lums Pond State Park, Delaware. — Lums Pond is the largest body of fresh water in the state of Delaware, formed in the early 1800s by a mill dam on St. Georges Creek. Today the pond is situated as a green oasis amid a densely settled urban–suburban matrix of development in northern Delaware's New Castle County (2010 population 559,753) and park visitation rates are high at peak times. The park's redbelly turtles (Pseudemys rubriventris) appear to be habituated to human presence and are highly visible to boaters and to hikers on the trail that encircles the pond. As a large-bodied and colorful species, they appear to attract positive attention from park visitors. Chrysemys picta also basks at moderate densities in the pond's coves.

Cahaba River in Birmingham, Alabama. — Along Cahaba River Road downstream of Hwy. 280 in Birmingham (2010 population 212,237), a thin strip of green space runs along a bend in the Cahaba River that has a large population of Alabama map turtles (Graptemys pulchra). I have informally called the site “Pulchra Park” for many years; other turtles that commonly bask at the site include river cooters (Pseudemys concinna), sliders (Trachemys scripta), G. geographica, stripeneck musk turtles (Sternotherus peltifer), and A. spinifera. A few kilometers upstream of that site is the Cahaba River Walk in Mountain Brook, another potential site for a turtle watching installation.

River Road Park in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. — The park is located on the Black Warrior River along the Jack Warner Parkway in Tuscaloosa (2010 population 90,468), adjacent to the University of Alabama. A long concrete walkway provides abundant access to river views. Blackknobbed sawbacks (Graptemys nigrinoda) are moderately abundant and I have also seen G. pulchra and A. spinifera basking at the site.

Veterans and Riverfront Parks in Albany, Georgia. — The parks occur along the Flint River in downtown Albany (2010 population 77,434), where river views are plentiful in riparian parklands. The most abundant basking turtle species are Barbour's map turtle (G. barbouri), P. concinna, and T. scripta. The parks also are contiguous with grounds of the Flint RiverQuarium, which features these species and several other turtle species native to southwestern Georgia.

What is required for a project like the one described herein is a nucleus of people, such as the members of a nonprofit organization, along with local people who appreciate the resource. Not all projects will be able to fund an undertaking on the scale of what I describe, but smaller scale projects with perhaps just a sign and a viewfinder or two may be incorporated into sites that have an existing riverside or lakeside path, at a fraction of the cost. The results of the project at Presque Isle suggest that any similar investment of money and time will pay substantial dividends.

As I was leaving Graveyard Pond at the end of 6 hrs of observation on Labor Day in September 2018, a group of 5 people had just arrived and was heading up the walkway toward the turtle observation deck. A young boy, perhaps 10–12 yrs old and leading the way, turned back to announce to the 4 adults “I bet we'll see at least 25 turtles!” Having just counted 33 common map turtles and a spiny softshell not 2 min earlier, I departed confident the boy was going to win that bet.