FAR WEST TEXAS — On Wednesday, a turtle named C17042 made it back home to a pond in Presidio County. He had been convalescing in San Antonio for years.
His journey started with Jennifer Smith, a professor at New Mexico State University who has spent years searching the rugged Big Bend region for this rare type of turtle.
The search led her to the Fuentez family. They had a ranch near the confluence of two mostly dry creeks. Even by West Texas standards, it was far-flung, the paved highway turning to dirt miles before their property.
Down the hill from the ranch house was a stagnant pond. Smith heard rumors it might have turtles.
“I was looking for perennial water sources on Google Earth,” she said. “It was kind of a fluke.”
One night in 2017, Smith walked down to the pond and put out some turtle traps. She caught three. The water was “putrid,” full of decay and mud. She had no idea how many more were in the water.
Around a month later, Smith returned to the pond with some Texas Parks & Wildlife officials. They waded out into the water, but they could hardly see anything.
The pond was a stock tank. They pulled out the drain, and more turtles started flowing out.
“They were real skinny, and there were no juveniles,” Smith said. “That wasn’t a good sign.”
With few modern sources of surface water, the Chihuahuan Desert might seem an unlikely home for aquatic turtles. That’s hardly the biggest question about creatures like C17042.
According to current classifications, they’re rough-footed mud turtles, a species with a range deep into Mexico. The International Union for Conservation of Nature describes them as “least concern,” meaning they’re not at all threatened.
The small population in West Texas complicates that picture. These turtles have only been found in pockets of Presidio County — making them one of the rarest turtles in the United States. Their habitat here has been under threat for decades, as landowners have depleted aquifers and diverted streams for livestock.
New research is also raising questions about whether they’re really the same species as the ones found deep in Mexico. An upcoming paper, co-authored by Smith and currently under peer review, argues there are in fact two species, pointing to “strong genetic and ecological differentiation.” It warns the species faces “existential challenges” and might be rarer than previously thought.
Estimates suggest there are only around 135 of these turtles in Presidio County. While researchers think they could survive in nearby habitats in northern Mexico and Big Bend National Park, they haven't found any.
Researchers are still piecing together information about this elusive turtle and its behaviors. Perhaps the hardest part is finding them at all.
“We don’t know that much,” said Andy Gluesenkamp, co-author on the paper and director of conservation at the Center for Conservation and Research at San Antonio Zoo. “There are so few in the wild.”
The turtles from the Fuentez ranch were very sick.
“They were just covered in this goo, this really thick slimy stuff,” Smith said. “You couldn’t even see their eyes or legs.”
The turtles ended up in the care of San Antonio Zoo, where they were named and tagged. Kamryn Richard, senior conservation technician at the Center for Conservation and Research, became one of their caretakers, taking them to vet appointments and feeding them a diet of pinkie mice, earthworms and turtle pellets.
“They’re a super cool species,” Richard said. She learned their personalities. She learned that ’40 and ’42 were friends.
“We try not to get too attached,” Richard added. “That doesn’t mean we don’t care about them.”
Follow @stephentpaulsen
