Motorists driving between Terre Haute and West Terre Haute have begun seeing two new yellow diamond-shaped warning signs: TURTLE CROSSING.
“Awareness is the first step, and I am super excited about the signs,” Amber Slaughterbeck, natural resource programmer for the Vigo County Parks and Recreation Department, said of the signs erected by the Indiana Department of Transportation near the Wabashiki Fish & Wildlife Area.
Debbie Calder, spokeswoman for INDOT, said the state agency installed the signs Tuesday. Calder said the signs are unique, as they are the only turtle crossing signs in INDOT’s west-central district, which spans 13 counties (Benton, Boone, Clay, Clinton, Fountain, Hendricks, Montgomery, Parke, Putnam, Tippecanoe, Vermillion, Vigo and Warren).
”The signs are a temporary measure, and we are working with other agencies to possibly come up with a plan to address the turtles,” Calder said.
In 2009, while still a student at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, Slaughterbeck noticed the remains of turtles, killed by trucks and cars, along National Avenue, formerly known as U.S. 40.
”One day I was on my way to class and saw a few turtles dead and that upset me. But when I got done with class, there were turtles just littered all over the road, dead,” she
”It was like a massacre of these turtles, so I pulled my car over and started walking along the guardrail. At that point, I thought I would save just a few turtles and see where it goes. I came back the next day and next day and realized that there were a lot of turtles to be saved,” she said.
To date, Slaughterbeck and at least six volunteers have rescued more than 2,000 turtles, That doesn’t count the 300 or more saved this year, which have not yet been calculated.
”Unfortunately this is not all the turtles we could have rescued,” Slaughterbeck said.
The turtles come from a variety of species, but generally are aquatic turtles, Slaughterbeck said. “There are box and painted turtles, but more red ear sliders, snapping turtles, a few musk turtles and spinney soft shell turtles as well,” she said. “There are quite a few different kinds. We identify them and write down what we found, how much they weighed, their size and sex. It’s actually research, so we can hopefully get some sort of crossing underneath the road.”
Turtles generally cross the road while temperatures are in the 60s to as high as the mid 80s, she said.
”That can be any time of the year. It really doesn’t mean any certain months, especially with the changing climate. They are always keeping us on our toes, but generally, they cross from March until November. They are definitely done when the ground starts to freeze and there is snow on the ground. Then you won’t see turtles,” Slaughterbeck said.
Volunteer Deborah Elliott-Kesler began helping Slaughterbeck collect turtles this year. She places them in a five-gallon plastic bucket, which is then taken to a nearby lake, the Lazy L, where the turtles are deposited. Owners of that lake has given permission for volunteers to release the turtles in that lake.
”I have lived in West Terre Haute for almost 30 years and traveled this road many times,” Elliott-Kesler said. “As the years have gone on during the summer, hit turtles were becoming more and more evident on this road. I didn’t know how to help. Amber put out a memo on the county email, so I called her and said I wanted to help,” Elliott-Kesler said.
”We walk up and down the grade, picking up the turtles and taking them to a lake and releasing them,” Elliott-Kesler said. “It really made me sad. People try to intentionally hit them and do hit them. I don’t understand that. I am an animal lover and just wanted to help out the turtles, so I am very happy that I have done it. It is very rewarding. I am the newest of the group. There are six of us that consistently come out all the time, but we always need more help,” she said.
”The most I have found at one time is 12, but have found 26 over a weekend period of time,” Elliott-Kesler said. “It is just important to go out there every day and do it.”
The next move, Slaughterbeck said, is to work on constructing a tunnel under National Avenue to allow the turtles, and other animals, to cross at will, without fear of becoming road kill.
”We had Rose-Hulman [Institute of Technology] students put together a plan. They spent an entire semester on it,” Slaughterbeck said. “We have a plan with the potential price costs of putting a large tunnel underneath [National Avenue], putting up fences as well to stop them from crossing the road, then channeling them in. But it is not just the turtles, we have pulled river otters out of the road. We ideally would like a tunnel big enough to allow the river otters, the beavers and all the other animals to cross underneath.”
”The great thing, there is precedence. This is not the first time this has been done. Other states have put in fencing and tunnels, so we have things that we can look at and studies that have worked. What we have in our plan is about $400,000 for fencing and tunnels,” Slaughterbeck said. “Now we have to work on raising the money.”
The efforts can be found on Facebook at Wabashiki Turtle Rescue.