It's a bumper crop . . . of London-bred turtle hatchlings

Thousands of tiny turtles are heading for freedom in the London region this summer, part of a decades-long push to save some of Ontario’s most at-risk reptiles from disappearing altogether.

The Southern Ontario At Risk Reptiles (SOARR) program based at the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority (UTRCA) expects to release between 11,000 and 12,000 hatchlings this season – one of its largest totals in 32 years of operation.

Those hatchlings come from about 800 nests collected and incubated in the program’s London lab.

More than 5,000 of them – about 400 nests – are endangered spiny softshell turtles, a species found in only a handful of waterways in Southwestern Ontario and southern Quebec. The rest include snapping, painted and northern map turtles.

“This is one of the biggest