Meeting Abstract
The common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) is a long lived reptile that tolerates tremendous amounts of pollution. Because of this, they have been used as indicators to monitor toxicity of their environment. The industrial history of the Philadelphia area as a manufacturer of steel and paper milling led to highly polluted waterways which suggests that the snapping turtles of the region are contaminated with heavy metal pollutants such as zinc, mercury and lead. While zinc is an essential element for humans, there are no known safe levels of lead consumption. This poses a potential health risk as snapper soup is a Philadelphia regional delicacy served in restaurants for hundreds of years and trapping turtles for consumption is legal. We examined the heavy metal content of tissue samples of C. serpentina (n= 47 claw clippings from living and additional muscle samples from road-killed turtles) collected in a ~900 square mile area around Philadelphia. Atomic absorption spectroscopy showed detectable heavy metal concentrations in all the samples. As expected, claw tissues of C. serpentina varied dramatically in zinc concentration across sites indicating that local conditions and historical pollution determine metal content. Keratin tissue (AVG= 1351.66μg/g, SD=2292.39μg/g, n=20) showed significantly higher zinc content than muscle (AVG=57.32μg/g, SD=14.59μg/g, n=2). Analysis for lead and mercury are still being investigated. Since turtles throughout the lower Delaware River watershed may have extreme metal concentrations in their tissues, eating turtle flesh from this area may be dangerous to humans in addition to being detrimental to turtle populations already potentially stressed by habitat degradation.
