MONSTERS IN OUR LAKES
I featured this story and photo narrative in a FOX News segment which can be viewed here: Watch Segment
MONSTERS IN OUR LAKES
Ali Baghdadi
Beneath the lakes and rivers of Illinois live creatures older than our cities, older than our highways, older than Chicagoland itself. Armored snapping turtles move silently through black mud like living fossils. Softshell turtles drift beneath the surface like something almost alien. Map turtles gather motionless on fallen timber, disappearing into the water in an instant.
And in most cases, before you ever see them, they’re already watching you through breaks in thick shoreline foliage and tangled reeds along the water’s edge.
Illinois is home to only 17 species of turtle. Approximately 90% of the state’s historic wetlands have been drained or filled, largely for agriculture and urban development, placing pressure on several native turtle species
But maybe that says more about us than it does about them.
These animals are not invaders. They are survivors from an older world still holding on in waterways surrounded by concrete, traffic, runoff, and endless development. Long before subdivisions, parking lots, and retention ponds reshaped Illinois, these turtles were already basking along riverbanks and moving through quiet wetlands.
We tend to label things as “monsters” when they don’t look soft, familiar, or easy to understand. Yet these turtles tell an entirely different story.
Healthy populations of Northern Map Turtles often reflect stable river systems with strong aquatic biodiversity. Spiny Softshell Turtles depend heavily on clean waterways, sandbars, and functioning river habitats to survive. Even Common Snapping Turtles, often portrayed as aggressive monsters, play an important role as scavengers helping maintain balance within aquatic ecosystems.
Their presence can reveal something deeper about the health of the world around us. When these species disappear, it is often a warning sign that the water itself is changing. Maybe the real story hidden beneath the surface of our lakes is something else entirely. Maybe it is about what survives.
Maybe it is about what disappears quietly.
And perhaps history will show that the turtles were never the monsters after all.
