Every adult box turtle is vital to the future of its population. Box turtle populations in the fragmented habitats typical of the eastern United States are so sensitive to the loss of adults that, according to modeling studies conducted by Dr. Richard Seigel of Towson University, the loss of just three from a population of 50 males and 50 females could doom that population to a slow, but irreversible, decline to extinction.
Most box turtles never survive the eight or so years that it takes to reach breeding age: Foxes, skunks, raccoons, opossums, crows, turkeys, domestic dogs and cats, and other animals won't hesitate to eat turtle eggs and young turtles whose shells are not yet hard enough to provide much protection. Those turtles who do survive must contend not only with roads, but also with an increasing loss of their habitats to development, which in turn brings more roads, more dogs and cats, and more people who tend to take turtles from the wild, thinking that they will make good pets. Every one of the 50 or so years that a wild female box turtle might live is crucial in ensuring that, of the 3 to 5 eggs she may lay a year, at least one of her young survives to adulthood to replace her in the population.
The conventional "wisdom" is to place the box turtle on the other side of the road in the direction it is headed. From what I understand about that point of view you have to approach it this way...if you take an animal out of the wild, you have guaranteed that this individual, its progeny, and its progeny's progeny have been removed. If you move it to the other side of the road, it has a chance to stay in the wild and survive. Even if it is run over in subsequent years, some of its progeny may survive, and then some of its progeny's progeny. For the purposes of wild populations, leaving the animal is certainly the best chance to keep numbers as high as possible. Does it mean that you may see the animal squished later? Yes. But, it may be worth it in the long run for the population if it has the chance to produce young in the meantime.
Sounds reasonable. Sadly, whoever came up with that blanket conclusion to place the box turtle on the other side of the road did not think it through and in most cases is misleading the good Samaritan to doom the animal (that could live to be over a hundred years old) to a premature death (in which case their are no progeny and if there were they would most likely encounter the same premature end). If this conventional "wisdom" was always the best advice, there would not be areas throughout the United States where large populations of box turtles disappeared in one generation once roads went in. But, I have to say I agree with this conventional reasoning if ...... the road is a little traveled road or trail out in the country or wild and not a relatively recent result of development that is ongoing in the area. The latter is where the most people will encounter the most box turtles crossing a road and that leads me to why I disagree with the conventional "wisdom" in most cases............ and I'll tell you why.
First of all, there is the obvious:
Because the turtle is pointing in one direction when you arrive doesn't mean that was the direction in which the turtle was headed - I've seen turtles hit and spun around unhurt or flipped and freeze, closed up there on the road with fear. I've seen them get in the road and turn around because of fear of the traffic. Unless you were watching them as they approached the road you can't say for sure where they were originally headed.
Box Turtles spend much of their life buried under leaves and in fauna but they love to come out during and after rains to rehydrate and forage for worms and insects brought out by the rain, often following drainage ditches (many drainage gulleys are along roads) and areas that temporarily fill with rain water. They navigate by the sun to find their home range so if it rains for several days with constant cloud cover they can wander aimlessly sometimes out of their range and thus may cross a road they normally wouldn't go near. You help them to the other side so that when the sun comes out the next morning, they realize they are lost and start back to their home range over the same road you helped them cross.
Every situation is different; other factors like the nature of the locality, type of road, and instinctual behavior of this species should be taken into account before a decision is made to "help" this turtle. So .......
To begin with we need to answer the proverbial question, "Why did the chicken (turtle) cross the road?"
And the answer for Box turtles is not "to get on the other side"!
These turtles cross the road for these 3 reasons:
(1) The road crosses their home range, possibly dividing hibernation sites from nesting sites.
(2) They have been taken from their home range and are obeying their homing instinct to get back.
(3) They are forced to search for or move to greener pastures because of construction and development of their home range.
If in the case of number (1) the road crosses the turtle's home range - Studies show that adult box turtles dwell in a home range of up to 3 or 4 acres. Hatchlings' home ranges can be measured by square yards for years and the range grows as they grow. So, why would anyone conclude that moving the turtle to the side of the road in the direction he was headed would help him when the road probably dissects its home range or as it matures its home range is growing to encompass the road? Often nesting turtles lay their eggs near roads where the shoulder's have been cleared making ideal nest sites in the sun usually accompanied by a drainage ditch near the road providing a moist ideal habitat these turtles like. Nothing like having your babies grow up playing next to a highway! As their home range expands from square yards to acres where do you think they'll wind up? I have often found several very young box turtles squished on the same stretch of road over a couple seasons within a few yards of each other. Mature box turtles travel every year within their home range to and from their hibernating grounds and if female, their nesting sites. If its home range, encompasses this road and it must cross the road for either of these reasons or just to forage how many times do you think he will be crossing that road again in a year let alone.....in the next 50 years? He doesn't have much of a chance of living a long life!
If in the case of number (2) the turtle is obeying his homing instinct - that means, as happens often, someone, ignorant of the turtle's natural behavior, has captured this turtle and later discovered they don't make the greatest pets and released it far (usually many miles) from where it was found. So the good Samaritan moves the turtle to the other side of the road so it can continue in the direction of its home range miles away only to encounter every road between here and there, let alone dogs, people, lawnmowers and dangerous things he may encounter on his way! If this is the case he doesn't have a chance of living a long life!
If in the case of number (3) the turtles are searching for or moving to greener pastures - Their habitat and/or population has been destroyed by development of real estate, building of roads, or nature (floods, disease, forest fire) and they are forced to relocate to find food, a mate, nesting grounds or hibernation sites. These turtles are often already stressed, starved, possibly diseased or injured and are such slow travelers there is little chance they will outrun or survive the pace of development, natural disaster or make it to greener pastures which may not exist and its homing instinct may bring him right back to a home range that has been replaced by roads, concrete, buildings and bulldozers. I hate to say it but...he doesn't have a chance of living a long life either!
Think about it. If you have lived for more that 35 years, I am sure you can probably remember finding box turtles crossing roads when you were young or throughout your life where there has been development over the years - chances are box turtles are no longer found on those roads, right? And why is that - did the turtles that survived learn to stay off roads or have a genetic disposition to avoid roads and now through "unnatural" selection a large population of turtles that avoid highways still lives there? If that were true it would mean that population has also lost the instinct to travel to a suitable hibernation site or suitable nesting site. What would that have done to their survival rate and longevity? Instinctive behavior does not die that easily.
The truth of the matter is when you see a box turtle crossing the road, leaving the turtle at that location is most likely a death sentence for that turtle and its progeny (unless as I said before it is a road or trail in the wild out of the way of development and a growing local population). If you truly wish to be a good Samaritan, the best course of action (if it can safely be done for the box turtle on the road) is to capture the box turtle and immediately try to locate a local box turtle refuge, turtle rescue, a local herp society knowledgeable about this species, or put it up for adoption to lifelong collectors who know what they are doing (easy to do today with the internet and modern communications). There it can be protected and cared for by dedicated enthusiasts who are knowledgable about the box turtle's instinctive behavior and probably live a long life and multiply. There are many people with collections that successfully propagate these turtles at a rate many times what is found in the wild due to predation, disease and roadkill.
As I said, in most cases I believe this would be the best course of action for the turtle - sadly it may not be for you because in some states you could be fined up to $5000 for saving the turtle's life. Although well intentioned to curb collecting of turtles for the pet trade, these states most likely were listening to the same "experts" that say "place the turtle on the other side of the road in the direction he is headed" when passing that law. I wonder why, if the goal is to protect populations of this animal, the same lawmakers don't fine the developer who bulldozes dozens of boxies to their death on several acres of development, purposely and deliberately targeting and destroying habitat with no regard of the helpless Box turtle which could easily be collected and preserved from the property before and even while clearing is conducted. Volunteers will do that! But a $5000 fine to the well intentioned "samaritan" who can't bear to see the animal squished and stops to save the animal is going to solve the problem? Can you answer that question?
Although relocating and finding a suitable protectorate for a box turtle runs its own risks, those risks are far less than leaving the turtle in a home range crossed by a road where it is virtually guaranteed by its own instinctual behavior to be subject to a premature death and consequently a steady decline in the population of that area because of a growing human population. So what if removing the turtle will speed up the already destined decline in the population in a developing area - there shouldn't be a turtle population where the progeny will be slaughtered daily year after year as soon as they start to mature and expand their range. They should be relocated to anywhere they can live their 100 year lifespan. In todays world, with the communications we now have to disseminate important information to promote the proper care of these animals and to place them where they will thrive and procreate this is an EASY task.
I live by a 4 lane interstate with a wooded median between the two lanes in either direction. The median is 100 yards wide in places with a creek running through it and used to be, the few box turtles that lived in the median, eventually when they got older, would sun themselves on the shoulder of the road after a rain. Sometimes they'd try to cross the road (and never make it) sometimes they'd turn around and go back. You just never know. But one thing's for sure. In thirty years of the road being there, there aren't any around anymore and it's not because people collected them.
If you have a different point of view go ahead and share it on this topic because we should keep an open mind on this subject! Convince me I am wrong because I wish that I was.
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