Want to help diamondback terrapins? Film festival raising money for conservation effort.

BARRINGTON — Every summer, the diamondback terrapins of Hundred Acre Cove climb out of the water to lay their eggs on Nockum Hill.

And every summer, a group of volunteers is there to meet them and make sure their nests are protected from predators.

A documentary being screened next Tuesday tells the story of the turtles, which are an endangered species in Rhode Island, and their minders with the Barrington Diamondback Terrapin Conservation Project.

How to watch the film

It’s being shown at Mt. Hope Farm in Bristol along with three other short films about turtle conservation in New England to raise funds for the Barrington project. The event, which starts at 6:30 p.m., is being held on what’s been dubbed World Turtle Day, an annual observance started by the nonprofit American Tortoise Rescue.

Tickets, which cost $50 a person and $25 for children under 16, can be purchased online at www.mounthopefarm.org/upcoming-events/worldturtleday.

'Turtles on the Hill' is a 'love story' to the turtles and community

The film on the Barrington project, “Turtles on the Hill,” was made by Carolyn Pralle, a former master’s degree student in environmental sciences at the University of Rhode Island, and one of her teachers Jason Jaacks, a filmmaker who’s directed documentaries for National Geographic and other media outlets.

Pralle got to know the volunteers who watch over the terrapins while she was pursuing her master’s project tracking the tiny hatchlings after they leave the nest.

Pralle, who now works for a conservation group in Wisconsin, calls the film a love story, reflecting not just her feelings about the turtles but the people who watch over them. She hopes it will inspire others to support the project or get involved in other conservation opportunities.

“I was captivated by how this small group of community members (not expert scientists) dedicated decades of their lives to care for this place and this animal,” she said in an email. “They did it without expectation of recognition, let alone pay. These community members stepped up because they cared, and that made me care. I wanted people to know about it.”

Jaacks says he was drawn to the story in part because it touches on larger issues about salt marshes and changes to the coastline as the Earth warms.

“Climate change is not some distant threat - either geographically or in some distant future,” he said. “It’s happening now and in our own backyards. Among other threats, the diamondback terrapin’s habitat is threatened by rising tides.”

What is a diamondback terrapin?

The diamondback terrapin is the only species of turtle in North America that lives exclusively in saltwater marshes, bays and lagoons. Named for the diamond pattern on its shell, the turtles' range stretches down the Atlantic Seaboard from Cape Cod to Florida and around the Gulf Coast to Texas, but its numbers are threatened by habitat loss as marshes have been filled in or drained or have been flooded by rising seas.

The terrapins that live in the Barrington River are believed to be the only significant breeding population of the species in Rhode Island. In 1990, a group that included Charlotte Sornborger, Pete McCalmont and Doug Rayner (who has since died) started observing the nests and doing what they could to keep coyotes, racoons and other animals from getting the eggs.

Some of the same terrapins have been returning year after year ever since. So have the volunteers.

“This community science project, more so than any other I’ve been involved with in my 30 years of doing conservation, really is an incredible example of what you can do for conservation with few resources but just a lot of will and ingenuity, intelligence, creativity and devotion,” University of Rhode Island ecologist Nancy Karraker says in the film.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Rhode Island diamondback terrapin conservation effort raising money with film festival