POWERGRAMS

14 It was a picture-perfect spring afternoon when Jeff Baker and Chad Fitch pushed back from a remote boat landing at Smith Lake in Winston County. As the sun dipped low beyond the trees, Baker steered the Alabama Power flat-bottom boat toward a sandstone shelf edging property owned by the U.S. Forest Service. Fitch, meanwhile, began loading chicken gizzards, purchased at a local supermarket, into a stack of fish traps. Slowly and methodically, Baker inched the boat along the shelf, stopping at spots about 30 feet apart. At each pause, Fitch carefully sank a trap so it was sitting just below the surface, tethering each one in place with a cord tied to an overhanging limb or bush – 20 traps in all. Then, with the sun quickly setting, Baker turned the boat and raced full speed across the lake to another section of National Forest, where the same regimen was repeated with 10 additional traps. It's a routine Baker and Fitch know well. For more than a decade, the two company biologists have been setting traps to temporarily capture a tiny turtle found nowhere else but in the upper reaches of the Black Warrior River watershed. And, as is always the case, the two wouldn't know until the next morning whether they were lucky enough to snare any. "Sometimes we get skunked," Fitch said, and nary a turtle is found. But other times, they will gather a bounty. Every captured turtle is released, after the catch is documented and the appropriate data collected. That data is then shared with others who share a similar passion for preserving this elusive, aquatic creature. It's all part of an ongoing effort – with multiple partners – to protect and, over time, expand the turtle's preferred habitat in the upper Black Warrior watershed, including Smith Lake. "Our goal is to help them continue to survive, and HELPING A TINY TURTLE, OR TWO COMPANY COLLABORATES WITH AGENCIES, SMITH LAKE RESIDENTS AND BUSINESSES TO PROTECT, IMPROVE HABITAT By Michael Sznajderman Photos by Meg McKinney ENVIRONMENT Alabama Power biologist Fitch sets turtle traps on Smith Lake.

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