Why Did The Turtle Cross The Road?

Second letter to the editor:

This time of year while you are out driving you may come upon one of our native species of turtle crossing a road. You might wonder why it would be doing something so dangerous. Turtles are looking for mates and laying eggs. They instinctively seek out high, dry, sunny locations to lay their eggs, sometimes needing to cross a road to find the ideal location. If you can safely stop your car, and wait to let the turtle pass in front of you, or can help move it to the other side of the road in the direction it was traveling, you are doing a wonderful service to help it survive. .Unfortunately most of our native turtles are in serious decline due to loss of habitat loss and people capturing and keeping them as pets. It is illegal in NY State for any citizen, except those that have special permits to possess any species of our native turtles. Three species are listed as Special Concern and one is Endangered and on the Federal Endangered Species list. Moving Box turtles and Wood Turtles from where they were born also causes most of them to die soon after releasing them to a new location. They have home territories and have learned over a lifetime the best places to find food, water and shelter, when moved they often starve to death. Releasing non native, pet turtles, like Red Eared Sliders is also causing problems for our native turtles, because they are much more aggressive and larger then our Eastern Painted Turtles and compete with them for food and territory. Thanks for helping our turtles survive so that our grandchildren might get to see them in the wild.