Kiley BriggsViews:
It’s a common scenario: you’re driving down a highway, and you spot a shiny lump in the middle of the road. As you approach, you realize it is a turtle and want to help. It may be tempting to scoop that turtle up and transport it to a safer spot, but doing so isn’t really doing the turtle any favors. I’ve written here before about why the best thing to do is almost always to simply help the turtle across the road in the direction it was headed, even if that direction doesn’t make a lot of sense. In this post, however, I will share a cautionary tale that demonstrates why.
Last spring, at one of the sites where we are studying Wood Turtle movement patterns along a major highway, I found a new turtle and attached a GPS transmitter to record its locations. Soon after attaching the transmitter, the turtle took off, eventually crossing the highway and traveling several miles outside of our study area. It isn’t unusual for Wood Turtles to travel a few miles, but as this turtle was nearing its destination, I learned that he had encountered a well-meaning person before I found him.
While chatting with a landowner where I first found the turtle, he let me know in early May he had found a Wood Turtle on a roadway closer to the town center. He picked it up off the road, then drove the turtle several miles and released it in the stream behind his house. Several days later, unaware of this, I arrived, found the turtle, and attached the transmitter. I only realized when the landowner showed me a photo and it was a perfect match with my new study turtle. Within a couple of weeks of me finding it, the turtle had begun to move, stopping for a couple of weeks at a time in various places along his way. Eventually, he settled down a few miles downstream from where I found him, almost exactly where the turtle was initially found by the landowner.
This could have ended poorly for the turtle. He crossed a major highway on his trip back home and could have crossed more. If things had gone a little differently, he might never have made it back home or been hit by a car. And, if released into unsuitable habitat, he might never have seen another Wood Turtle again even if he did survive. While things ended well for this turtle, this is a great cautionary tale about why turtles shouldn’t be moved from one place to another except by trained professionals knowledgeable about turtle biology.
You’ll hear people say that when turtles are moved outside of their home territories they will wander aimlessly in search of home until they die. While the point of that statement is true – turtles should not be moved to new locations – it isn’t really true to say it is a guaranteed death sentence either. Studies with Box Turtles have shown that more often than not, the turtles will settle down in their new environment. Personally, I have seen a couple cases where Wood Turtles found in urban areas (assumed to be moved there by people) were released to suitable habitat many miles away and they did settle down into their new homes. But Wood Turtles do have excellent navigation skills, and quite often, they do try to navigate back home when displaced by floods or well-meaning people. Turtles are individuals with unique personalities and tendencies, and how each turtle responds to being moved depends on that turtle. Making the decision to move a turtle even just a few miles away to where you think is a safer spot can actually be very dangerous for that turtle.
Turtles don’t just go places by accident. When turtles cross roads, they know where they are coming from and usually know where they are going. Generally speaking, we shouldn’t decide we know better and move turtles to new locations. If you see a turtle on a road, please help it cross the road. And, if you think the turtle really is in the wrong place, is injured, or might be a released or escaped pet, please contact your state wildlife agency or a licensed wildlife rehabber for guidance before you put the turtle somewhere else.
