If you can hold a hamburger, you know how to help an at-risk turtle cross the road.
Whether or not you can hold it like a burger will depend on its size. But if it’s a larger one, you can also use a snow shovel from your trunk to scoot it across the pavement, or grip it at the rear and – as in childhood schoolyard races – slowly wheelbarrow it to safety on the other side.
“They’re not able to cross roads very quickly,” said Mhairi McFarlane, the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s London-based science and stewardship director. Even worse, cold-blooded turtles like to pause on a hot roadway to soak up energy from the sun.
The conservation group says helping the lumbering creatures – all species of which are officially classified as at-risk in Ontario – is one little thing people can do to save and preserve wildlife.
But don’t expect to be thanked. Just ask McFarlane, who rescued a “very grumpy” snapping turtle from a Guelph-area road a few weeks ago.
“She was pretty heavy. I was able to lift it, but only just, and I had to get it through a fence at the edge of the road and that was really awkward,” she explained. “And that was the most ungrateful turtle I’ve ever met. But hopefully she went on and found a nice place to lay her eggs and was happy and healthy.”
Unlike other wildlife – deer, foxes, squirrels – crossing a road is a big time commitment for a turtle. If you’re driving near wetlands and see a turtle in your path, odds are it’s on its way to lay eggs, or has just done so, McFarlane said. So you’re not just saving one turtle, but future generations as well.
Always make sure it’s safe to stop your car if you spot a turtle in need of a lift, she stressed. And place the turtle on the other side of the road, heading the same direction it already was going – if you turn one around, it will take the turtle longer to get back on course.
And remember, the experience could be disorienting for the turtle, which doesn’t know it’s being helped and could feel that it’s being harassed.
“All of the turtle species in Ontario are . . . threatened or endangered. They’re all . . . sliding towards local or global extinction,” McFarlane explained. So kind-hearted motorists can help stop them from disappearing for good.
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