(soft music) - When I look at a turtle, I feel like I'm looking at deep time.

These animals have been around for millions and millions of years, relatively unchanged.

When I go to a museum, and I see a fully articulated dinosaur skeleton, and in the same day, I can see a living turtle that predated that skeleton in terms of evolutionary time, that just blows me away.

So you're basically looking at a dinosaur.

They maybe are looking at us and just think like, "These things won't be around but a few minutes," (soft music) (birds chirping) (soft music) I believe this is the back end of the turtle, and you can see the red underneath, so that's the yolk sac.

I care for the western pond turtle eggs for roughly three months from the time we receive them to the time they hatch.

We're basically the babysitters for the hatchlings until they're large enough where they can survive on their own in the wild.

This turtle that's in this shell here is pretty much filling up the entire shell, which indicates to me that it'll hatch fairly soon.

I can't say exactly when, but I would say within a couple of weeks.

What I'm appreciating when I look at 'em is I'm seeing veins, good, healthy red, really bright red veins, and most of the space of the egg is filled up with the baby turtle.

Lets me know that they're developing pretty well, so.

So it makes me feel I can breathe easier when I see that.

After the turtle's hatch in the turtle room, then they graduate to those tubs.

I'm gonna show you the small turtles.

(soft music) I think he's ready to bust a move.

(birds chirping) As soon as it's possible, soon as the weather allows in the spring, we move them outside to acclimate them to being outside 'cause they're gonna be released.

(soft music) It's the only native freshwater turtle in the state of Washington.

And nowadays, when I get the opportunity to see a turtle in the wild, it's almost startling now, to where when I was a child, and when I was growing up, I could find turtles in the woods.

It was pretty common.

They were down 30 years ago to about 150 individuals in the entire state.

So that's pretty severely endangered.

The pond turtle really right now, has basically, limited areas where they can go.

When people say, "return them to the wild", well, what wild is left?

Not much.

They're still endangered, but we're making progress.

Knowing that these animals are actually gonna be returned to the wild is a good feeling.

- 0372.

- Correct.

Just make sure that we have it right before we release 'em.

- [Wildlife Worker 1] 11572966.

- [Wildlife Worker 2] Yep.

- How many are in the buckets?

- Okay, there we go.

(soft music) (birds chirping) All right, who wants to go first?

They're very gentle animals.

- [Volunteer] Good luck, turtle.

You got this.

- All right.

Woo-hoo!

Oh yeah, there we go.

- [Bill] You get the feeling like, okay, I hope they'll make a contribution to get these guys at least started right and give 'em a chance out there.

- It's going under the water.

Ooh.

- [Volunteer] Go be free.

- You know, some people thrive on the bad news all the time, like, there's no hope.

The alternative to not trying is to lose all these animals.

So I try to focus on, well, my small part of it, I can make a positive contribution.

(soft music) They were here before us, and hopefully they'll be here after us.

They're part of the fabric of the entire ecosystem.

(soft music)