Chick
The Living Memory of Camp Chickahominy
Chick is an Eastern Box Turtle that spent most of his life as a wild animal within Camp Chickahominy, developing an undeniable charisma by seasonally interacting with the camp staff and the Boy Scouts as far back as the seventies. The outgoing and friendly personality of this box turtle exists as a living record of the character of generations of people that he met there.
Chick’s Eye
On a snowy Christmas day in 1993, the visiting grandson of the camp ranger at Camp Chickahominy found Chick exposed in below freezing weather with a severe infection in his left eye. He was brought to the ranger house, where the ranger modified a dog kennel to provide Chick with some safety from predators while he healed and finished his brumation. Although he survived the infection, the loss of his eye that winter made Chick forever reliant on the people at the campground.
Hoping that Chick would return to the wild, to live the rest of his natural life, the scouts left him behind at the closed campground. For over a decade he lived there with minimal support, but he was never alone for very long. Surveyors, demolition crews, fishermen, hunters, and former scouts who were there to reminisce; would still help him out with a bit of a hotdog or a nightcrawler occasionally. It was only after the housing construction began within his home territory, that it was decided by a former Camp Chickahominy staff member to permanently remove Chick from his natural habitat. Unfortunately, meeting his feeding, veterinary, and enclosure needs had become too difficult for them over the years, and so we offered to provide Chick with everything he needs - and share the experience.
The Briar Patch
The variety of potential predators in the area, our location in the city, and Chick’s known ability to escape, meant that security was the top priority in our enclosure design. We currently keep Chick in a 8’ x 8’ x 2’ outdoor pen, built out of pressure treated wood, and covered overhead by wire fencing. Special effort went into managing sunlight intensity as well as recreating the familiar sights, smells and textures of the campground. A security camera watches him 24/7, and I upload the best footage twice a week to Chick’s YouTube channel.
When a box turtle is displaced from it’s home territory it will use a combination of sun compass navigation and an innate magnetic field sense to find it’s way back. Chick’s territory within the campground has been made unrecognizable and unsafe by development, but he remembers where it was, and his natural drive to return there remains.
Chick’s Future at The Briarwoods
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