International Volunteer Day + Appreciation Day Recap
Happy International Volunteer Day! Every year, volunteers from all over Ontario submit their turtle, frog, and toad observations to the Adopt-A-Pond app/website through the Turtle Tally & FrogWatch programs. This data is crucial in gathering large amounts of information on reptiles and amphibians from a wide range of areas. All of the information collected goes towards decision making in the protection of these species and their habitats.
There were so many great photos of these observations, here are just a couple:
American toad spotted on August 9th, 2021 
Midland Painted turtle sighting from October 8th, 2021
In celebration of these great efforts, Adopt-A-Pond throws an annual Appreciation Day for the volunteers who put so much hard work in collecting this data. This year marks the 15th Appreciation Day and was held virtually on November 20th. Our field technicians gave presentations on many aspects of our field work for the Adopt-A-Pond program, including the flora and fauna that was seen along the way. Additionally, we had guest speakers from the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre, LittleRESQ, Toronto Zoo, and Laurentian University Graduate students.
One of our favourite stories that we shared on Appreciation Day was of the rehabilitation and release of a female adult Blanding’s turtle. You can read more about her individual story here: Two Years in the Making: the rehabilitation and release of an adult Blanding’s turtle | Adopt-A-Pond News (wordpress.com) We had not come up with a name for her yet, and opened up the floor to the event attendees for some name suggestions. We received some turt-ley awesome name suggestions!
Now, we would love to introduce the winning name for the OTCC turtle! 🥁 Drumroll please! 🥁 And the OTCC turtle’s new name is:
Lady Cordelia
Thank you to all our volunteers who suggested names. We had some fantastic options and it definitely was a difficult choice.
For those of you that signed up for Appreciation Day, you can expect to see the Zoom recording in your inbox soon to look back at all the amazing panelists and presentations. And for anyone that didn’t get the chance, we look forward to seeing you at the next Appreciation Day!