Dell Cullum, the founder of Wildlife Rescue of East Hampton, and a team of volunteers recovered nine turtles, dozens of fish including two koi, and a large bullfrog from Town Pond in East Hampton during a two-week effort to extricate wildlife from the pond prior to the completion of a planned dredging.
The dredging had begun last month, and soon after a first phase of the project had been completed, East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen received reports of turtle sightings. On Feb. 27, he halted the project for a week to give Mr. Cullum a chance to organize a rescue team and safely remove wildlife.
The rescue effort began the following day. By March 4, three turtles and several fish had been recovered, "a small segment of what we were really hoping to achieve," Mr. Cullum told the village trustees at a board meeting that day. Citing a forecast for warmer weather, which he said would improve the chances of finding more turtles, he asked for the dredging to be delayed an additional week. The trustees allowed him to continue through Sunday.
With the help of a drone, the team was able to rescue five more turtles, Mr. Cullum said on Tuesday. "Once we saw that the turtles were leaving trails, we could tell how big they were, and we just had to follow the trails — in and out of the water — to find them," he said. Mr. Cullum also used a thermal imaging camera to try to pinpoint the creatures, but found it less effective. "This was a needle in a haystack operation," he said. "Still, we found every turtle associated with every trail."
All of the turtles appeared to be red-eared sliders, which had likely been household pets before being dumped in the pond, he said. The South Fork Natural History Museum and Nature Center in Bridgehampton took four of the turtles, and another four were given to homeowners with ponds on their properties.
"They did a really great job, especially given what they had to deal with," said Karen Testa, the executive director of Turtle Rescue of the Hamptons. Because most of the water had already been removed from the pond for the dredging, "wildlife would have to hunker down into the mud, and they're impossible to find in the mud," she said. The winter weather also likely hampered the effort. In warmer temperatures, the turtles "would be actively swimming and not sleeping and hiding," she said. The village received permits for the project from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, according to Billy Hajek, the village planner; nevertheless, Ms. Testa said, it should have undertaken a wildlife rescue effort before dredging had begun.
In addition to wildlife, plenty of garbage, including glass bottles, a cellphone, and multiple hockey pucks, was unearthed, which came as no surprise to Mr. Cullum, who said he is no longer shocked by the amount of man-made detritus found in nature on the East End. "I'm surprised I didn't find a gun or a treasure chest," he said.
Dredging was scheduled to resume on Wednesday, and Mr. Cullum and volunteers from his organization plan to be on site daily to keep an eye out for more wildlife. "The digging will create the noise and vibrations that will cause more turtles to surface," Mr. Cullum said. "We've got a clear plan and lots of volunteers. We'll be there before, during, and after each day of work. Whatever it takes."
