Across Ontario, an extraordinary grassroots movement is quietly unfolding on highways, country roads, and in the skies above. Thousands of passionate volunteers are coming together to build a vital emergency transportation network with a single, urgent goal: saving wild turtles.
At the heart of this province-wide effort is the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre (OTCC), located in Peterborough. Accredited by the College of Veterinarians of Ontario, the OTCC is home to the province’s only wild turtle hospital. Here, dedicated veterinary teams provide critical medical care, urgent surgeries, and rehabilitation for turtles that have been injured in vehicle strikes, left stranded, or harmed in encounters with other wildlife, among other life-threatening situations.
The emergency chain often begins long before a patient reaches Peterborough. Because Ontario’s native turtle species are geographically dispersed across a massive landscape, transporting an injured animal to the OTCC frequently requires a precarious, multi-thousand-kilometre journey by land or air. To bridge this vast geographic gap, a network of more than 1,500 volunteers coordinates seamlessly to ensure injured reptiles receive the specialized medical attention they desperately need.
In addition to treating injured adults, the centre performs specialized salvage work. When possible, volunteers transport eggs recovered from deceased female turtles to the facility, where they can sometimes be incubated, successfully hatched, and eventually released back into the wild. The OTCC fondly refers to this collective volunteer effort as the "Turtle Taxi."
Wings for Wildlife: Airborne Rescues Across Ontario
The logistical challenges of traversing Ontario’s immense geography mean that ground transport alone is sometimes insufficient for animals facing critical medical timelines. To overcome these distances, volunteer pilots step in to accelerate the rescue process.
Wayne Harvey, a pilot and Turtle Taxi volunteer based near London, Ontario, has completed multiple flights to pick up injured turtles from remote corners of the province. Flying to northern hubs like Dryden, Harvey offers a significantly faster route for injured turtles that would otherwise face grueling overland journeys spanning more than 1,500 kilometres. He routinely monitors communications from the OTCC for transport requests, plans his routes carefully, and completes up to four such rescue missions a year.
"If I see a few places that I know have small airports, I’ll offer to pick them up at, say, three or four airports," Harvey explains.
At each designated stop along his flight path, local volunteers meet him on the tarmac with turtles secured inside individual carriers. These ground crews frequently include local turtle First Responders—many of whom are professional veterinarians and veterinary technicians—who are equipped to stabilize the animals before they take flight.
Isaiah Frazao is another pilot who donates his time and aircraft to the cause. This past summer marked his first full season transporting injured turtles across the province. For Frazao, the volunteer experience has provided a profound sense of purpose and fulfillment, alongside a deeper, more personal connection to Canadian wildlife.
"Turtles are very quiet animals," Frazao says. "But, once we bring them to Peterborough, and they see all the OTCC representatives, they come right out of their shells."
Facing Mounting Pressures in the Wild
This complex network of support and medical intervention could not come at a more crucial time for Ontario’s reptile populations. All eight of the province’s native freshwater turtle species are currently considered at risk by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), an independent panel of scientists and government experts that assesses species at the national level.
Turtles face a barrage of anthropogenic and natural threats, with vehicle strikes, extensive habitat loss, and high rates of nest predation ranking among the most severe pressures. These dangers are further compounded by the biological traits of turtles themselves, which are characterized by exceptionally long maturation periods and low annual reproduction rates. Because populations rely heavily on the survival of adult turtles—particularly breeding females—the loss of even a single adult can have devastating consequences for a local population.
The Relay on the Ground
While pilots cover vast expanses of airspace, an equally dedicated army of drivers manages the intricate relay network on the ground. Kelly Holman, a Turtle Taxi volunteer based in Arkona, Ontario, first became interested in the network after observing wild turtles during her regular walks through local conservation areas.
"I would go for walks through these conservation areas and see a whole bunch of painted turtles basking, and it was the best part of my day," Holman recalls.
Today, Holman coordinates with fellow Turtle Taxi volunteers to transfer turtles through successive legs of their journey toward the OTCC. These handoffs frequently take place in public, accessible locations, such as suburban or rural parking lots, requiring precise timing and communication among drivers.
Volunteers also play a critical, highly regulated role in the final chapter of a turtle’s journey: returning recovered animals back into the wild. Because turtles have strong site fidelity, conservation protocols dictate that they must be released into the exact same geographic areas where they were originally found.
"We use coordinates given to us by the Centre, but then you also have to rely on your phone having service and the conditions," Holman notes.
When environmental conditions shift—such as wetlands drying up during seasonal droughts—volunteers must exercise careful judgment to locate a suitable alternative release site while strictly adhering to guidelines set by the OTCC and government environmental agencies.
For Dean and Sharon Davidson, Turtle Taxi volunteers based near Owen Sound, participating in these releases is among the most rewarding aspects of their involvement.
"Some like running water, some like quiet water, some like it weedy, some like it muddy," Dean Davidson explains.
Collaborating with the OTCC to identify appropriate release sites also creates opportunities to engage private landowners. In many cases, landowners readily agree to permit turtles to be released into natural waterways located on their properties, helping to foster a broader sense of community stewardship and involvement in local conservation efforts.
Expanding Education and Advocacy
The OTCC operates as a key component of the broader Ontario Turtle Conservation Network (OTCN), an umbrella organization dedicated to expanding the reach of turtle education, scientific research, and conservation programming across the province.
Leora Berman, founder of the Haliburton-based organization Turtle Guardians—itself an active member of the OTCN—works to integrate specialized turtle educational programs and training initiatives for young people and municipal workers who operate heavy machinery or maintain infrastructure near Ontario’s roadways. The Turtle Guardians’ Road Researchers Program actively advocates for the implementation of safer turtle crossings and the protection of vulnerable nesting areas, particularly during peak migration and nesting seasons in the spring and early summer.
"Turtles cross between wetlands primarily, but other turtle crossings are very random… so you’ve got hundreds and thousands of kilometres of [potential] turtle crossings," Berman explains.
She notes that strategic infrastructure investments, such as dedicated wildlife culverts and exclusion fencing, could dramatically reduce mortality rates by safely directing turtles away from high-traffic roadways.
Reflecting on the deeper motivations that draw people to this demanding volunteer work, Berman and the Turtle Taxi drivers view turtle conservation as a reciprocal way of living that allows individuals to find their place within the wider ecological community.
"It connects you to the Earth, and creation, and also the next generations," Berman says. "Turtles get under your skin in ways that are unexpected. There is something incredibly healing or awakening about the sentience of animals when you can hang with one that doesn’t move very fast."