Why do turtles cross roads and highways?
Turtles of all ages will wander away from their home water bodies occasionally, but mainly it is the adult females that must struggle overland in the nesting season to find a suitable warm, sunny place to bury their eggs. Roads border many of our rivers, ponds and lakes where turtles live, so vehicles take a terrible annual toll on breeding females. Since turtles need a specific combination of conditions to lay their eggs — southern exposure with its more direct sun, soft soil, the appropriate soil humidity, and little or no plant cover — they often have no choice but to go far from the water in which they live. Female turtles may have used many of these sites for generations.
