I was driving from Northville into Salem on 8 Mile a few weeks ago– just at the Salem border I saw a car parked on the shoulder, and a few feet away an older gentleman and a young boy. They were both looking down and taking small steps. I saw a wetland in the background, and guessed correctly…they were sheparding a turtle to its destination.
A few weeks prior to that, I was driving down 5 Mile between Curtis and Currie Road, and saw a large pile of brush in the road. I moved over, and as I passed the “brush” I saw it move and suddenly realized that it was a turtle. I stopped the car and decided to help “Murtle” cross the road, only to find out that Murtle didn’t want any help, thank you very much! She/he swung around at me (turtles move surprisingly fast) and gave me a dirty look. As we eyeballed each other, I decided that Murtle’s reluctance to be helped wasn’t going to deter me.
I picked up and gave her/him a “helicopter” ride to the edge of the road that she was headed to, put her down and bid farewell. I went back later to make sure that she wasn’t back in the road, and she was long gone.
Interested to know more about our Michigan Tortugas (Spanish for “turtle”) and road crossings, I did a little Googling and found that it’s okay to help turtles out of the road when you make sure you assist them in the same direction that they were going. Need I say this?...if it’s a snapping turtle, you may want to think twice about your body parts – specifically keeping them well out of reach of some serious jaws. The state has also put up a “turtle fence” on US-31 to keep the Muskegon River turtles from finding themselves under the wheels of traffic. A hazard to motorists swerving to miss the turtles, this stretch of road was known as one of the deadliest for turtles in the nation. The fence doesn’t stop the turtles from getting to the other side of the marsh, just requires them to swim rather than walk.
Salem’s dirt roads are a blessing to the turtles of our area for several reasons. First, dirt roads are not as impervious as paved roads, so rain water that runs off the road travels slower and retains less heat. That makes a tremendous difference to aquatic habitat near roadways – water temperature artificially raised by runoff from paved roads can be devastating to all aquatic wildlife, not just turtles. This is why Salem is one of two communities that still have trout in its streams! To learn more about this, please visit the Johnson Creek Protection Group – they have a great picture of a brown trout on the site.
I find it awe-inspiring to think about how we are connected with the earth and its creatures – living in Salem puts this connection right in our faces, if we just take the time to look and listen.
Watch out for those turtles – Fred
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