On June 30, LouAnn Clarissa Kilpatrick was killed by a turtle just outside of Grand Rapids. The 66-year-old swerved to avoid hitting a turtle and died when her car careened off the road. Her tragic accident was a reversal of the usual state of affairs between turtles and humans. Each year, thousands of these reptiles meet their end crossing the pavement. As anyone who has ever adopted a highway knows, the animal’s evolved defense mechanism is no match for a two-ton SUV. Unfortunately, here in the metro area, turtle habitats are increasingly fragmented by new exurban roads. Their nesting areas have been paved over by new driveways and parking lots.
To alert drivers during the turtle nesting season—most of the summer—the Three Rivers Park District posts turtle-crossing signs (which are, incidentally, quite popular with urban sign thieves). Although she encourages drivers to avoid hitting these slow-moving pedestrians, naturalist Madeleine Linck tells people it is far preferable to hit a turtle than to cause a car accident by swerving violently to avoid it. If you do come across a turtle in the road, Linck says, you can pick it up and ferry it to the side it was heading for. “But don’t get hit by a car in the process!” she adds sensibly.
Three species of turtle, the Western painted, snapping, and the endangered Blandings turtle, are most commonly found crossing the road. In a daylong journey, the females seek higher ground with dry, sandy soil and good sun exposure. This is where they want to bury their eggs. Most migrating turtles travel a few hundred yards, although the Blandings turtle, distinguished by its long, yellow-throated neck, may cover more than a mile to reach its nesting ground.
As if the encroaching concrete jungle weren’t enough, some of the state’s unluckier turtles might find themselves trapped, crated, and loaded onto a plane to Asia, where indigenous turtle populations have been crashing dramatically. In China, turtles are used for everything from soup to cures for cancer (a mysterious and disturbing substance called turtle jelly is highly prized for its alleged medicinal properties). Locally, taking turtles for a family or church dinner is also a Lenten tradition in the Catholic communities around St. Cloud.
The DNR recently proposed significant changes to the regulations that govern turtle harvesting, changes the agency hopes will stem the apparent decline of Minnesota’s turtle populations. The DNR will allow the twenty or so current holders of commercial turtle licenses to continue operations, though under tighter rules.
The Minnesota Herpetological Society, the state’s biggest and most active group of reptile enthusiasts, helped pass the legislation that led to the new rules on taking turtles, but one of the group’s members recently dealt with a much more bizarre abduction. Bill Moss, a bearded fiftysomething who lives on St. Paul’s East Side, is an active member of the society. On an unseasonably warm day last November, Angus, his 45-pound African spurred tortoise, was nabbed from his lawn. “I came back outside after some work indoors and he had vanished,” Moss said. “I knew he couldn’t have jumped the fence!”
Although Moss did not suspect celebrity as a motive for the disappearance, Angus’s local fame is rivaled only by the long-suffering and now retired giant tortoises that children used to ride like ponies at the Como Zoo. For years Angus had made an annual appearance the Minnesota Renaissance Festival as a mascot for the Minnesota Herpetological Society’s booth. He’d roamed the grounds as “Angus of Clan McTortoise,” festooned with a plaid kilt and bearing a donation cup on the top of his shell.
After a frustrating month of near misses and dead ends, Moss eventually recovered Angus in a warehouse apartment in Northeast Minneapolis. His pet’s involuntary migration apparently included three successive short-term owners, numerous unsuccessful attempts to sell the animal to local pet stores, and, finally, a custom-built plywood platform complete with a warming light and a garden pond inside the warehouse apartment. Although he hit up Moss for the $200 he had spent on the plywood habitat, owner number three had let his conscience get the better of him. After receiving one of Moss’s missing-tortoise flyers via owner number two, he called Moss. Luckily, Angus seemed unaffected by his time in trendy Nordeast. “Honestly, I suspect he was fairly oblivious to the whole thing,” said Moss with a chuckle.—Dan Gilchrist
Leave a Reply Cancel reply