Headstarting is a conservation tool that assumes raising turtles in protected ex situ environments to larger body sizes, then releasing them back into the wild, increases their survivorship compared to wild, non-headstarted turtles. Our goal was to quantitatively test this fundamental assumption by comparing somatic growth and survivorship among 3 age classes of headstarted juvenile wood turtles (Glyptemys insculpta) monitored for 3 years (2016)(2017)(2018) in Ontario, Canada. Our age classes were turtles headstarted for 2 years (n = 15), turtles headstarted for 1 year (n = 30), and turtles incubated and hatched ex situ, then released (i.e., no headstarting; hatchlings, n = 30). Both age classes of headstarted turtles were radiotracked for 1 year after release. We released hatchlings in August and radio-tracked them for 1 month. All cohorts exhibited positive somatic growth after release. One-month post-release survival of hatchlings was 70%. Turtles headstarted for 2 years had slightly higher 1-year post-release survivorship (67%) than turtles headstarted for 1 year (47%), but there was little to no evidence for a difference (P = 0.17).Modeling these survivorship results with real-life constraints of only 100 hatchlings available for headstarting each year (biological constraint from source population), and a 100-turtle
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