The National Aquarium in Baltimore, along with Waterfront Partnership, National Aquarium, Clearwater Mills, LLC and Living Classroom Foundations created a floating platform for the resident turtles of Baltimore harbor.
Jack Cover of the National Aquarium in Baltimore, along with Waterfront Partnership, National Aquarium, Clearwater Mills, LLC and Living Classroom Foundations created a floating platform for the resident turtles of Baltimore harbor.
The harbor is home to various freshwater turtles, including cooters, red-eared sliders and yellow-bellied sliders. The floating platform also has a caged area for wetland plants that are growing there until they become established. The caged area will be removed and the plants will provide a foraging area for juvenile turtles, Mr. Trash Wheel, of the Waterfront Partnership wrote on Facebook. Under the platform is an area for the turtles to haul out and sleep. The top of the platform is covered in mesh and what looks like coco-coir or hemp type substrate that makes it easier for the turtles to rest on. The mesh also makes it easier for the turtles to haul out of the water.
The inner harbor is severely polluted and the city is working to make the harbor waters cleaner. The Waterfront Partnership employs several trash wheels that move about the waterway collecting trash that is floating on the surface. The wheel looks like a modified Pac Man with a huge mouth that just gobbles the trash and places it in a dumpster inside the solar-powered device that powers pumps to the wheel when there isn’t strong enough flow in the harbor to turn the wheels.
