The TC’s Southern Pacific Pond Turtle Conservation Program has been off to a great start this season. In past posts we've chronicled our search for Southern California’s only native freshwater turtle, Actinemys pallida, at two field sites. Past sightings have been sporadic and too few to confirm the presence of a population of resident Southern Pacific Pond Turtles which are notorious for evading human detection. This changed in May. Once we were permitted to employ hands-on techniques of capturing turtles, we immediately began finding healthy adults suggesting viable populations are present in these two very different locations.