Tracking Terrapins, Training Scientists

Biologist Willem Roosenburg, born and raised in Southern Maryland, has been tracking terrapin populations along the Patuxent for 22 summers now, compiling one of the longest-running natural history studies of this well-known Maryland native. Working with him this past summer were students from Ohio University where he teaches and from the University of Maryland where the diamondback terrapin is the school mascot. Also assisting were two field biologists sent from Myanmar where the Burmese roofed turtle has become an endangered species.

According to Roosenburg's records, terrapin populations in the Patuxent have dropped 75 percent in the last 12 years.