Currently, little is known about the state of our Western Painted Turtle population at Buttertubs. How many turtles are there? Are their numbers holding steady, increasing, or declining? Are they able to successfully nest, and are there enough hatchlings surviving into adulthood? In the past, the use of wildlife cameras set up by the province, and visual surveys done by Nature Trust field crews have provided us with a bit of a picture into the activities and behaviours of the turtles. For example, we have learned higher numbers of turtles prefer to nest on the Buttertubs dike compared to the nesting beach on the decommissioned trail at the northeastern edge of the marsh. A study done in the summer of 2012 by VIU student Stephanie Thorpe also indicates that there are greater numbers of the invasive red-eared slider than there are our native Western Painted turtle at Buttertubs, though this might be due more to the tendency of the Sliders to outcompete the Painted turtles for use of basking logs, forcing the painted turtles to bask on shoreline vegetation and making them difficult to spot.

Western Painted Turtle Ambassadors conduct nesting surveys by walking the marsh during the peak nesting time (early evening) from May to July, recording WPT nesting activity and protecting nests from predators with caging. In 2023 Ambassadors recorded 31 nesting activity observations and protected 24 nests. In 2024 Ambassadors recorded 28 nesting activity observations and protected 14 nests. Because of this dedicated effort we now better understand where nesting activity takes place (primarily on the dike trail and outside the marsh in the courtyards of the housing complex on Buttertubs Drive). We also discovered how vulnerable our native turtles are to nest predation: unprotected (or poorly protected) nests were predated within hours of being laid! Thanks to the nest protection efforts we counted at least 6 nests that successfully produced WPT hatchlings in 2024 – Hooray!