For me, it’s always gratifying to help a box turtle to cross the road. With the warm weather this past week, quite a few were crossing; strange for November.
While squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, etc., are typically ready to reproduce a year or so after birth, many turtles, like our Hudson Valley’s box turtles, require 12 or more years to reach reproductive maturity, close to the maturity time of we humans. After mating, they only deposit a small clutch of eggs into the ground to incubate for around three months, hopefully escaping detection from hungry skunks and raccoons. Then, after hatching, the baby turtles now have to race to the nearest low, damp area of their territory, with many, if not most, being taken by raccoons, turkeys, ravens, crows and red-shouldered hawks and blue jays.
The few that then survive need to mature slowly over time at a rate very near that of we humans’, while the birds and mammals that prey upon them reproduce rapidly with annual generations, and a at unthinkably far higher landscape biomass, with regional squirrels’ landscape biomass typically outstripping that of box turtles’ by over 200:1 (!).
For this reason, I find it much more alarming to see a smashed box turtle on the road than to see dozens of squirrel mortalities. At our current rate of loss, our children’s children may not see these gentle, colorful creatures in the wild.
Let’s all slow down, put the phone down and pay attention when we drive, in the name of our treasured valley’s rich biodiversity.
Jay Westerveld, NYNH
Jay Westerveld has been an internationally recognized research ecologist and educator for over 40 years throughout America, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. Locally, He co-founded the Glenmere Conservation Coalition, the Sugar Loaf Historical Society, the Chester Conservation Council, the New York Natural History council, and the Wawayanda Watershed Alliance.