Watch out for turtles in the road

By ELISA CAMPBELL

Published on June 09, 2006

Each year, in late spring and early summer, female turtles crawl from the places they live most of the year to the sandy areas where they lay their eggs, then return to 'home.' Starting around the middle of June, for about a month, we will see them on our roads.

We need to be alert for them , and realize that an object up ahead is probably not a sock someone dropped on the way home from the laundromat or a rock that mysteriously got into the middle of the road. Then we can slow down and avoid them, so we will see them ALIVE on the edge of the road, instead of squashed - or worse yet, badly injured - in the middle.

If you see one, and can safely stop, carry the turtle to the side of the road it was heading toward, and place it in the vegetation a foot or more off the road. Do not take it home 'to save it.'

There are other killers of turtles, of course, including construction and the mowing of fields. One turtle that we know lives around this area, the spotted turtle, was recently removed from the list of threatened species by the Board of the Division of Fish and Wildlife. That means that the presence of spotted turtles on a site will no longer be considered a reason to prevent that area's development.

The reason for the board's decision is that the spotted turtle is not as rare as was once thought. When it was put on the list of species 'of special concern,' it was thought that it only lived in 24 locations; however, since then it has been found in 960 locations.

In an column in the Boston Globe, Joseph Larson, a member of the board and a resident of Pelham, reported that board members said the turtle would not now be placed on the list if it were not already there, and argued that they must apply the criteria in the law and their regulations consistently. The Division has had to defend its legal right to regulate developments that could endanger species on the list.

Arguing for continued protection were most biologists who study the turtles. They are concerned that very little is known about them. Since turtles can live a long time, seeing one adult turtle does not indicate anything about whether there is a healthy population of turtles able to reproduce and carry on their species or just one or a few remnants hanging on.

Board members understand the need for more knowledge about the species. They voted both to make it illegal for anyone to possess a spotted turtle without a permit. And they created a working group to work with the Division's staff to look into updating the regulations to reflect more modern scientific knowledge. According to Larson, 'the criteria for adding, removing and changing the status of species on the state list have been in place for about 20 years' and have not been revised.

To some people, the board's decision seems to be a give-away to developers. The presence of one or more spotted turtles has frequently led to environmental studies and revised or dropped plans for construction. Developers are happy about the revision.

Others are not. In addition to our concern about the destruction of wetlands and other important habitat, there is the special attractiveness of the turtles themselves. They are non-threatening and undeniably cute. And, perhaps most important for many of us amateurs, they are easily identifiable. I remember my joy the first time I picked one up on Old Farm Road and realized that the turtle in my hand couldn't be anything but a spotted turtle.

Those yellow spots on the shell can't be missed.

The people who are responsible for protecting our vulnerable species need to reflect modern scientific knowledge in their regulations before they do serious harm to one or more of the species they are monitoring. In the meantime, all of us should take personal action to protect the turtles that live among us.

Elisa Campbell is the former chair of the Select Board and Planning Board.