Diamondback Terrapin

The Department of Natural Resources proposed regulations yesterday to protect Maryland's state reptile, the diamondback terrapin, from over-harvesting. The regulations, which came as a compromise after legislators proposed a moratorium on terrapin harvesting, will shorten the season from nine months to three months and require a stricter permit system for watermen who catch the turtles. The new rules will also change the size limits from the 6 inches watermen can catch now to 4-7 inches.

Those trying to celebrate what is traditionally considered an annual rite of summer - catching crabs to feast on - are reminded that those tasty critters typically can be found in the same waters as the state's reptile, the diamondback terrapin. That's why officials from the Department of Natural Resources and the National Aquarium are asking recreation crab pot owners to include turtle excluders in their pots. Without the excluders, the equipment can accidentally trap and drown the diamondbacks.

Move over black-eyed Susan and white oak. Make room for a real state plant: horsemint.The herb with the pointy green leaves and pale yellow blossoms smells like thyme and once was a major ingredient of Listerine. Now it's the cause celebre of the Maryland Herb Association, which wants to make it a state symbol."It's got a royal air to it. It's striking and different," said Francesca Hedrick, the association's president.The herbalists tried this year to persuade state lawmakers to make Maryland the second state to adopt a state herb.

Every so often, I'm asked a question that causes me to scratch my head. Linda Nevaldine, who is working on an event to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of Druid Hill Park, wants to know: Just what is Maryland-style food? This sent me to a box of stuff I've saved for years and kept under my bed. I have menus from the old Rennert Hotel, Marconi's and Miller Brothers, all in downtown Baltimore, all within easy walking distance from each other. What they served would constitute a pretty fair representation of top fare here.

OVERSHADOWED by Mother's Day, the governor's proclamation last weekend of May 13 as Diamondback Terrapin Day might take a few years to catch on, but Marguerite Whilden predicts it will be big. "Not everyone fishes, but who does not love a turtle?" asks the fisheries outreach and education specialist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Whilden has set up a "Terrapin Station" Web site (name borrowed from an old Grateful Dead album) at www.dnr.state. md.us/terrapin. Through nature studies, nesting beach protection, hatch-and-release programs and pure turtle appeal, she sees Malaclemys terrapin as an ambassador to engage the 85 percent of the public who don't routinely fish the Chesapeake.

Last year, the threat facing Maryland's diamondback terrapin was as plain as the little noses on their faces. Demand for them as food or pets had skyrocketed. And a leading terrapin researcher presented compelling evidence that their harvest has been greatly underreported. Considering that Virginia prohibits the harvest of diamondbacks, it looked like a pretty easy call for state lawmakers and the Department of Natural Resources to follow suit. But what happened next made matters worse.

Those trying to celebrate what is traditionally considered an annual rite of summer - catching crabs to feast on - are reminded that those tasty critters typically can be found in the same waters as the state's reptile, the diamondback terrapin. That's why officials from the Department of Natural Resources and the National Aquarium are asking recreation crab pot owners to include turtle excluders in their pots. Without the excluders, the equipment can accidentally trap and drown the diamondbacks.

The TV anchors are using it in their banter, it's all over sports-talk radio, and University of Maryland fans are shouting it across crowded sports bars as they clink their bottles of Bud Ice and watch their team's improbable run to the Final Four of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. We're talking here about the unofficial slogan of Terrapin fans - "Fear the turtle!" surely the hippest, funniest, most ironic in big-time college hoops today. Question: What do you do when your school has the gentle, plodding, smallish terrapin as its mascot, while seemingly every other team in the land has a larger, swifter, fiercer-looking one?

A bill designed to outlaw the trapping of Maryland's diamondback terrapin, which is threatened by a growing market in China, could be weakened by an exemption tentatively approved yesterday. The state Senate voted 27-19 to amend the proposed ban to allow the continued trapping and possession of the turtles for aquaculture. Supporters said the change was designed to protect a Preston waterman who has started breeding thousands of the turtles in tanks behind his home for sale to Asia for turtle soup.

Panel kills two bills on victim notificationANNAPOLIS -- The House Judiciary Committee has killed two bills sponsored by Del. Donald B. Elliott that would have required prisons to notify victims of sexual abuse, child abuse and violent crimes when their attacker is released.The committee voted 13-7 Friday to kill House Bills 368 and 369 introduced by Mr. Elliott, a Republican representing Carroll and Howard counties.Del. Richard C. Matthews, a Carroll Republican and Judiciary Committee member, voted for his colleague's bills.

Skittles, a 6-month-old diamondback terrapin, has made quite a splash at Wilde Lake Middle School this year. The school is using Skittles as a way to teach students about environmentalism, scientific research and the importance of higher education through the National Aquarium in Baltimore's "Terrapins in the Classroom" program. The school received the hatchling in October after Amy Musgrave, a sixth-grade science teacher and team leader, attended training through the aquarium and the Maryland Environmental Service in September.

Fear the turtle lobby. In winning General Assembly approval of legislation to outlaw the trapping of diamondback terrapins, conservationists waged a quirky but highly effective campaign. They introduced a photogenic terrapin couple, Emily and Edward, as "witnesses" at a hearing about Maryland's mascot. They passed out hundreds of DVDs documenting the decline of the signature Chesapeake Bay species. And they brought in a quick-tongued turtle lawyer, who dashed off an eleventh-hour amendment securing the bill's protections.

A bill designed to outlaw the trapping of Maryland's diamondback terrapin, which is threatened by a growing market in China, could be weakened by an exemption tentatively approved yesterday. The state Senate voted 27-19 to amend the proposed ban to allow the continued trapping and possession of the turtles for aquaculture. Supporters said the change was designed to protect a Preston waterman who has started breeding thousands of the turtles in tanks behind his home for sale to Asia for turtle soup.

Last year, the threat facing Maryland's diamondback terrapin was as plain as the little noses on their faces. Demand for them as food or pets had skyrocketed. And a leading terrapin researcher presented compelling evidence that their harvest has been greatly underreported. Considering that Virginia prohibits the harvest of diamondbacks, it looked like a pretty easy call for state lawmakers and the Department of Natural Resources to follow suit. But what happened next made matters worse.

The Department of Natural Resources proposed regulations yesterday to protect Maryland's state reptile, the diamondback terrapin, from over-harvesting. The regulations, which came as a compromise after legislators proposed a moratorium on terrapin harvesting, will shorten the season from nine months to three months and require a stricter permit system for watermen who catch the turtles. The new rules will also change the size limits from the 6 inches watermen can catch now to 4-7 inches.

Free state's turtles from commercial sale The Department of Natural Resources' failure to protect the diamondback terrapin against commercial over-exploitation is consistent with its historic bias in favor of the interests of a small number of commercial fishermen over conservation and the interests of other stakeholders ("Free the turtle," editorial, Jan. 29), The commercial taking of terrapins is essentially unregulated. They are not listed under Maryland law as a species for which DNR is required to have a fisheries management plan that incorporates a scientific assessment of its population size and health.

GRASONVILLE - Fear the turtle, as University of Maryland basketball fans warned during their team's run to the Final Four? Or, more likely, fear the loss of the turtle. As shoreline development has spread, habitat for the diamondback terrapin - Malaclemys terrapin - has shrunk, leaving state biologists and environmentalists worried about the future of Maryland's "official state reptile" and the university's mascot. Yesterday, with the help of elementary school students from Annapolis, Bowie and Millersville, Gov. Parris N. Glendening launched a Maryland Diamondback Terrapin Task Force to assess the status of the turtle and recommend steps to preserve it at the Horsehead Wetlands Center just south of the Kent Narrows Bridge.

Free state's turtles from commercial sale The Department of Natural Resources' failure to protect the diamondback terrapin against commercial over-exploitation is consistent with its historic bias in favor of the interests of a small number of commercial fishermen over conservation and the interests of other stakeholders ("Free the turtle," editorial, Jan. 29), The commercial taking of terrapins is essentially unregulated. They are not listed under Maryland law as a species for which DNR is required to have a fisheries management plan that incorporates a scientific assessment of its population size and health.

GRASONVILLE - For the last decade, the diamondback terrapin - symbol of the University of Maryland and a species fighting for its niche in the ecosystem - has had Marguerite Whilden as its full-time advocate in state government. Now she is gone from the state payroll, and the future of the modest terrapin conservation program she ran is up in the air. Whilden, known widely as "the Turtle Lady," was one of about 80 state employees laid off last month as part of the Ehrlich administration's plan to cut $208 million from this year's budget to deal with Maryland's revenue shortfall.

NEW YORK -- The diamondback terrapin dug herself a hole in the middle of a sandy trail at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge along the south shore of Queens and went right to work, apparently oblivious to the biologist crouching 20 feet away and trying not to breathe. In just a few minutes, she laid a dozen inchlong eggs in the hole, filled it in, danced her wide-webbed back feet on the sand to tamp it flat and ambled back toward the water. Before the turtle, a sturdy specimen with black spots on her face and a barnacle on her back, could get far, the biologist, Professor Russell L. Burke of Hofstra University, scooped her up and set her in a bucket with two others.