My first find of a northwestern pond turtle in Ackerson

While doing topographic surveying in support of the gully-fill restoration at Ackerson Meadow, I found a pond turtle basking in the sun in the section of the gully that was to be scraped clean in the following days by heavy machinery. Yosemite deploys a team of aquatic biologists to search the channel ahead of the machines, finding and removing turtles to safe locations. They’ve found dozens of turtles, but this was my first one! Thanks to Pando for the photo of me and my turtle.