Posts Tagged → road
Turtle Time
It is officially turtle time.
Every spring turtles of all types emerge from their muddy hideaways, under stream banks, under logs, or burrowed deep into the soft dirt on the side of a farm field.
Turtles are gentle creatures, hurting no one, and yet when they make themselves vulnerable by appearing on the sides of roads, or trying to cross roads, many drivers go out of their way to hit them. Seems obvious to say, a turtle hit by a vehicle will either die a long, lingering, painful death, or if they are small, they will be crushed outright.
What the hell is that about, anyway?
Seeing these sad, destroyed, dead little things strewn about on the roadsides is painful. Turtles really bother no one, and they should elicit human compassion and empathy for their slow but intense drive to find a safe and soft place to dig a hole and lay their eggs. It is not their fault that humans have built uncrossable roads with no wildlife tunnels, or that some humans delight in maiming little animals.
Please slow down along Front Street in Susquehanna Township and entering into Harrisburg, and give the turtles there a break. After millions of years of moving slowly, purposefully, and deliberately, they have earned it.
Please brake for turtles
Beginning around the I-81 overpass over Front Street in Harrisburg, and ending about half a mile south, turtles are now trying to reach loamy dirt to lay their eggs.
Oddly, sadly, many dead and dying turtles litter the roadside, hit by cars, either by accident or on purpose.
It’s difficult to plumb the depths of someone’s thinking when they deliberately drive off the roadway and onto the roadside, to crush a tiny helpless little animal like this.
Please brake for turtles. They can’t, won’t, and haven’t done anything to us humans. They deserve to live, too.
Are Turtles Crossing the Road Really a Threat?
Why drivers seem to target slow-moving, non-threatening little turtles is beyond understanding.
Don’t we all have a soft spot in our hearts for innocent, vulnerable, gentle creatures that do us no harm?
The same goes for snakes, which eat the rodent mice, rats, and chipmunks that do so much damage to our homes, crops, gardens, and vehicles.
Every spring and summer, turtles cross roads as they leave water bodies like rivers, ponds, lakes, and marshes, and seek out soft soil where they can lay their eggs, so that the next generation of their kind can continue their unimposing life cycle. Yet every year, roadways are littered with dead and wounded turtles, many dying slowly in the baking hot sun.
Their crime is nothing more than appearing in front of humans behind the wheel of a machine. Are so many of us really so homicidal or sadistic that we go out of our way to hurt, injure, and kill a little helpless animal?
The unfortunate, sad answer is Yes, a lot of drivers go out of their way to hit turtles with their cars. You can simply look at where the turtles lie, crushed or wounded on the side of the road, where the car driver had to actually veer off the roadway to hit the helpless little thing. What is really sad is that turtles take at least ten years to breed, so killing one or two (or stealing one or two) in a given area can doom or kill off the entire population there.
If you have compassion for turtles, you can watch these instructive videos below, where curious turtle-liking guys put a rubber turtle alongside some roads near their homes and generated some unhappy results, and where drivers get out to try and help injured turtles.
Bottom line is Yep, drivers went out of their way to run over the little rubber turtle.