They're using CSI techniques to find the world's rarest turtle
And why Ben Franklin thought bald eagles were jerks.
Happy Friday and thanks to everyone who joined this week! The main goal of FUZZ is to raise money for conservation causes around the world, and thanks to your support, we now have $200 in our FUZZ FUNDS account💵 for January. (For annual subscribers, I'm spreading your donation across the year to help ensure we have meaningful contributions each month.)
In two weeks, I'll present some vetted conservation organizations working on issues we've covered this month, and you'll help decide where the support goes.
And here's a weekend special: for every new subscriber who joins before Monday, I'll add another $10 to our FUZZ FUNDS as a thank you for helping get this newsletter off the ground. They can sign up directly at FUZZ.net, or you can forward them this newsletter. You could even sign up on their behalf! I won't know! (But maybe ask first... probably.)
Onto the news.
The 370-pound ghost scientists are racing to find
Imagine trying to find a single turtle in a lake three times the size of Central Park. Now imagine that turtle is one of the last two members of its species on Earth. This is the challenge facing conservationists working to save the Swinhoe's softshell turtle from extinction.
But scientists have just unveiled a powerful new tool in this search – a portable DNA test that can detect traces of these elusive turtles in water samples. Think of it as CSI meets conservation: just as investigators can find DNA evidence at a crime scene, researchers can now find turtle DNA in lakes and rivers.
"This is truly groundbreaking for conservation research," says Dr. Tracie Seimon, who led the development of this new test at the Wildlife Conservation Society, the group which also oversees the Bronx and Prospect Park Zoos. The technique detects environmental DNA (or eDNA) – the genetic material that organisms leave behind in their environment through things like skin cells, urine, and feces.
The stakes couldn't be higher. With just three known Swinhoe's softshell turtles remaining – one male in a Chinese zoo, one found in Vietnam’s Dong Mo Lake and one turtle of unknown sex in Xuan Khanh Lake, also in Vietnam – finding any additional survivors is crucial for preventing extinction. These prehistoric-looking turtles, which can weigh up to 370 pounds, have been around for nearly 10 million years. But hunting, habitat destruction, and pollution have pushed them to the brink.
The new test showed promise in field trials, successfully detecting turtle DNA in a 69-acre penned area Dong Mo Lake when a known turtle was present. However, the technology faces challenges – water temperature, UV exposure, and lake conditions can all affect how long DNA traces last. And a positive DNA test doesn't tell you if a turtle is still alive; it just confirms one was recently in the area.
Still, this portable test gives conservationists a powerful new tool for surveying remote lakes and rivers where these cryptic turtles might still survive. Previously, scientists had to ship water samples to specialized labs and wait weeks or months for results. Now they can get answers within hours, right at the lake shore.
“Time is ticking," Seimon told BBC Wildlife Magazine this week. “Swinhoe’s softshell turtle is considered functionally extinct, meaning their population density is too low to reproduce naturally. Their future existence hinges on finding additional animals in other unexplored lakes that may still exist, both for protecting these animals and securing a captive breeding population.
As teams prepare to deploy this DNA test across Vietnam, Laos, and China, they're in a race against time. But for the first time, they have a way to detect these ghostly giants before they fade into extinction. And if it works here, tests like this have broader implications for rare and endangered species that might be just as difficult to detect.
Subscriber shots 📷
Find some cool wildlife in your own backyard? E-mail me at dan@fuzz.net or tag the FUZZ feed on Instagram @fuzzdotnet.
Christopher sent in his awesome photo of a bald eagle taken in Port Townsend, Wash.
Despite what most of us learned in school, the bald eagle wasn't officially our national bird until last month. Preston Cook, an eagle enthusiast from Wabasha, Minnesota, discovered this oversight when he found that the federal government had never formally granted the designation. (Benjamin Franklin would have approved of the delay – he famously called the eagle "a bird of bad moral character.")
The oversight was finally corrected when Minnesota's congressional delegation sponsored a bill to make it official, which President Biden signed into law on December 24.
Weekend watch 🎥
I wanted so badly to make a ‘Netflix and Krill’ pun, but this week’s pick is about sharks. So close!
WORLD’S BIGGEST BIG WHITE? follows an unexpected gathering of great white sharks off Oahu, Hawaii – including the legendary Deep Blue, a 60-year-old shark believed to be one of the largest ever filmed. While great whites were once considered rare visitors to Hawaiian waters, this documentary reveals their migration patterns may be far more extensive than previously thought.
I stumbled onto this with friends during a "what should we watch?" moment, and it completely hooked us. The footage of local divers swimming alongside these massive sharks is crazy. It’s available to stream for free on Disney+.
Have a great weekend! See you Monday.
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