Keeping our turtles off the roads

As families head out for summer vacations, we hope you'll keep your eyes out for a few creatures that may be on their own journeys. At this time of year, it's common to see amphibians and reptiles making their way across roads, nesting alongside or sunning themselves on or near the pavement. 

Young snapping turtle. Credit: Eric Schrading/USFWS

In relation to today's post on New Jersey and the threatened bog turtle, we'd like to highlight a really neat project that we hope will help keep some of New Jersey's other precious turtles safe. 

Volunteers from the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey and Exelon-Oyster Creek Generating Station placed 1,000 feet of cut pipe along a heavily traveled section of road to prevent turtles from attempting to cross. Not only is this an innovative and inexpensive solution, it needs less maintenance than fences. The foundation will monitor the experiment to see if it might work for future projects.

Both photos by Eric Schrading/USFWS.

Several partners made it happen, from the town to a couple businesses. We paid for the piping, and Eric Schrading with our New Jersey Field Office brought it out to the site. Read the rest of the story at Conserve Wildlife blog.