Students aim to save endangered alligator snapping turtle

Peoria, Ill. — Are high school students the missing link toward ensuring the alligator snapping turtle doesn’t go the way of the dodo bird and the passenger pigeon?

Is that even a real question?

The answer to each is a resounding yes, at least to Paul Ritter, a sublimely enthusiastic environmental science teacher at Pontiac Township High School. Ritter is embarking on a campaign to "bring (the) species back from the brink of extinction.”

Ritter hopes to get some turtles to raise in his classroom in Pontiac. Then he hopes other science classes will sign on in the future. “It’s both an academic pursuit and the pursuit of saving the species,” Ritter said. “You couldn’t have one without the other. What an opportunity for the students.”

Pontiac senior Amanda Muir agreed with her teacher.

“I don’t know much about turtles,” said Muir, “but I plan to learn. Being involved in a project like this where the goal is to actually save a species is pretty exciting.”

Read the full story at the Peoria Journal Star.

Photo credit: Fred Zwicky/Journal Star