Why did the turtle cross the road? It snapped to it: Nature News

My first sighting of a snapping turtle this spring seemed an auspicious start to turtle season.

Some teenage boys had pulled their car to the side of the road, warning lights flashing, and were out helping a fairly large snapping turtle across. They were doing it gently and seemed to know what they were doing — not picking it up by its tail (this can seriously injure the turtle!). Instead, they got it onto a car mat and pushed it across.

In hindsight, I wish I had gotten a photo and names and been able to thank them publicly for their good deed. Not everyone treats snapping turtles crossing a road as nicely. Later that same week, I was able to help a smaller snapper cross a different road. And then a friend was digging up one of her garden beds last week, and before she could plant anything, a snapping turtle had claimed it for her nesting site, digging into the sandy soil to lay her eggs. Why all this turtle movement?

Snapping turtles can be easier to find this time of year because they are moving around the land looking for nesting sites. They are particularly attracted to places where humans have already loosened up the soil — roadsides, construction sites, and gardens all make ideal nesting sites. If you like the idea of snapping turtles laying eggs in your yard, create a turtle garden, as my friend inadvertently did by digging an ordinary raised bed filled with loose soil. Don't plant anything and if you're lucky, turtles will come.

Snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina) are probably the most feared turtles in New England. They have a notoriously long neck (up to two-thirds the length of their shell) and will hold their head back in their shell, shooting it out and lunging when threatened. They can snap off a finger with their powerful jaws. However, they can't reach all the way around to their backsides. Experts will advise you to hold them by the back of the shell where they can’t get you. I, however, prefer the car mat approach.

The other worry many people have (I certainly do) is that if you're swimming in a pond, a snapping turtle might come up and chomp on your toes. This is highly unlikely as the normal behavior of a snapper in the water is to flee from would-be attackers. While they are omnivores that eat plants and animals, everything from cattails to baby ducks, humans are too large to be attractive prey and are more likely perceived as a threat. While I was watching snapping turtles at a local pond, a large great blue heron waded by, apparently not bothered by the snapping turtles that lurked below.

Since this is a good time of year for turtle spotting (most of our native turtles are out and about looking for good nesting sites). If you live in Maine like I do, take photos of any turtles you see and submit your observations to the Maine Amphibian & Reptile Atlas Project (go to maine.gov) or upload sightings to their project on the iNaturalist app.

MARAP is one of the longest-running citizen science projects in New England. Over the past 36 years, more than 13,000 records have been submitted by hundreds of volunteers statewide! Even if you don’t live in Maine, any sightings of anything uploaded to iNaturalist are meaningful contributions to an ever-growing database of biodiversity.

Snapping turtles are animals that, like horseshoe crabs and sharks, are often called "living fossils." They (the snapping turtle family, Chelydridae) have been around, in roughly their present form, for almost 90 million years. This means they are well-adapted to their environment (and to a changing environment). The big question is, can they cope with the rapid changes humans have brought to this world?

While snapping turtles are not endangered in New England (like most other turtles) they still need our help to thrive. We all need to emulate those teenage boys — if you see a snapping turtle (or any turtle) trying to cross a road, help it get to the other side.

Susan Pike, a researcher and an environmental sciences and biology teacher at Dover High School, welcomes your ideas for future column topics. Send your photos and observations to [email protected]. Read more of her Nature News columns at Seacoastonline.com and pikes-hikes.com, and follow her on Instagram @pikeshikes.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Why did the turtle cross the road? It snapped to it: Nature News