The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks is teaming up with Missouri State University researchers to launch alligator snapping turtles into state waters in autumn of this year.
Juvenile alligator snapping turtles raised at the Tishomingo National Fish Hatchery in Oklahoma will be tagged and released into an area of the Neosho River.
The Neosho River is a stream of the Arkansas River in eastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma running about 463 miles long and is part of the Mississippi River watershed.
“Alligator Snapping Turtles from the hatchery have been reintroduced in Illinois, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Reintroduction stockings of roughly 1,200 juvenile Alligator Snapping Turtles have occurred on the Caney, Neosho, and Verdigris Rivers in northeast Oklahoma,” said a Kansas Department of Wildlife & Parks (KDWP) press release.
Researchers will be able to track the tagged turtles to determine how far they move.
The dinosaur-like turtles will then be recaptured to determine survival and growth rates.
