PROVIDENCE JOURNAL (Rhode Island) 11 June 05 Leave the wild turtles alone (Ken Weber)
One was speckled with yellow dots, as if paint had splattered onto its smooth, dark shell. The other's shell was high and rounded, with a blotchy yet strangely appealing design.
They were little turtles, a spotted turtle and a box turtle. Both were traveling. But in their determined efforts to perpetuate their kind, both may have been traveling toward oblivion. Not just these individuals, but their entire species.
We're in the season when turtles are most active, most easily seen. The females are out searching for places to lay their eggs. Unfortunately for many turtles, this is their last act because they frequently try to cross roads and are killed beneath wheels.
Turtles simply haven't learned about wheels. Unlike some other animals, turtles don't dash off to the side when cars approach. Of course, turtles are too slow-moving on land to dash anywhere. If they recognize any threat in the roar of a car or truck, they just crouch down and pull heads into shells. That works with a fox or raccoon; it doesn't work very well with a three-ton vehicle.
Still, there doesn't appear to be a shortage of turtles around. They are in almost every pond and stream and river and marsh. Despite the hundreds upon hundreds that are killed by traffic each year, it's easy to find turtles. On sunny days they are practically stacked up on favored logs and rocks, soaking up the warmth.
But look more closely. Probably 90 percent or more of all turtles we see are of two varieties, colorful painted turtles or drab musk turtles. Occasionally, we come across the big snapping turtles -- that's always an adventure -- but rarely do the others that are supposed to be here make appearances. Where are the spotted turtles and box turtles and wood turtles? In trouble, that's where. They're decreasing all across southern New England and could be in danger of someday vanishing altogether from our region.
Roads and traffic aren't their only problems. Polluted waters and loss of suitable habitat are keys, too. While snapping turtles, painted turtles and musk turtles -- they smell so awful some people call them stinkpots -- can live in waters that are fouled to some degree, spotted turtles need clean water. Wood turtles and box turtles spend much of their lives on land, but many have been displaced by housing developments and similar projects. A bird can fly to another forest; a turtle cannot.
That's why seeing the spotted turtle and the box turtle in the same week was surprising, and encouraging. In some years, neither is seen at all. This spotted turtle came from a tiny wetland and was crossing a backyard, apparently on its way to a sandy area, where it presumably would lay its eggs. The box turtle was crawling across a country road, probably bent on the same mission.
The spotted turtle, on the lawn, was in no imminent danger but the box turtle was, so it was carried over the road. People who have helped other turtles cross roads know that a painted turtle, when picked up, flails its legs and squirms. A snapper appreciates such rescue attempts even less. It tries to claw at the helping hands and usually snaps its hooked beak. Trying to carry a big snapping turtle is not an easy, or pleasant, task. People may be better off diverting traffic around the turtle, if possible and safe to do, and letting the snapper proceed at its own plodding pace. A box turtle is different. When approached, it simply boxes itself inside its shell.
No other turtle can conceal itself so well inside its shell; even its head is drawn all the way in and the hinged "front door" shut tight. Seeing a box turtle like this makes us wonder how any are killed by predators, but a few animals, such as coyotes, seem to have learned the trick.
In some places, there once was a custom, upon finding a box turtle, of carving initials and dates on the underside of the shell, then releasing the turtle. Because these turtles can live a long time -- up to 100 years -- and because they spend most of those years in the same general area, they became something of a living link between human generations. There are many stories of finding Grampa's initials on a box turtle decades later.
These days, such a practice is rightly deplored, and so is the collecting of any wild turtles for pets. In fact, box turtles, spotted turtles and wood turtles are all protected by law in Rhode Island and Massachusetts; in Connecticut both the box turtle and wood turtle are listed as "species of special concern." Permits are required for possession.
It's much better to let box turtles wander the forests, snacking on wild berries and snails. Let the spotted turtles prowl their shallow pools and snooze away summer's driest periods. Let the wood turtles bask on the banks of streams in peace. They and our other turtles have enough problems. Even if they cross roads safely, lay their eggs, and make it back without being crunched by traffic, they are likely to lose most of their eggs to skunks, foxes, raccoons and opossums.
Turtles can use all the help they can get.
Leave the wild turtles alone