People who run over turtles were to me nothing but cold-blooded killers. I took their inattention for indifference to the world around them. Until I became one of them.

My hubris was brought up short the day I ran over one. I was driving a busy state route, when I was distracted by three children on bikes riding on the shoulder. I swung out to give them a wide berth, only at the last minute seeing the small black shape between the double yellow lines. The sickening pop under my tire sent a jolt through me. Returning, I saw the crushed body and the woodland stream flowing under the road where the turtle had emerged. From then on, I held my anger at the operators of turtle-killing cars, chastened in the knowledge that I had joined the criminal element.

Turtles, more than any other New Hampshire animal, are most affected by our roads, our cars, our pets, and our subdivisions. Low, slow and driven by ancient impulses and long-imprinted navigation cues, they follow the same routes year after year, regardless of the changes in the land around them.

So precipitous has been certain turtle species’ demise that the state of New Hampshire recently upgraded the Blanding’s turtle status to “Endangered” and the spotted turtle to “Threatened.”

For many years, I had a front row seat to the diminishment of these two turtle species.

Our house and small lot was bounded on two sides by a large marsh and a country road on the front. At the end of our property a small pond, a dip in the road, and an active vernal pool on the opposite side, made for a turtle super highway as turtles began to wander to feed or lay eggs in May and June.

Painted and giant snapping turtles were the primary travelers, but the delicate and beautiful spotted turtles and the rare Blanding’s were also there in notable numbers. I was raised an outdoor kid on the rivers, ponds and lakes of New Hampshire, but I had never seen a spotted turtle until we moved there. Smaller and slightly flatter than painted turtles, these black and yellow turtles are celebrated in New Hampshire naturalist David Carroll’s Year of the Turtle. The contrast of their yellow spots and orange skin patches on their ebony shells make them the most beautiful of all turtles.

The shy spotted turtles spend most of their time hidden among the grass humps and the sloughs of marshes, except in the spring when they come out of hibernation and make for the vernal pools to recharge their batteries with wood frog and salamander eggs and again later, when they emerge to lay their eggs.

It is during this time that they are most vulnerable to natural predators­ and automobiles.

Fast and fluid in the water, most turtles are as slow and cumbersome on land as piano movers. Except for the spotted turtles. The little turtles seem to realize that their time on the asphalt is deadly and move quickly.

I learned to recognize their sprints from my home and quickened my own step to try to save them.

Many were the times I sprinted down the road to help them complete their perilous crossings. I saved many. But as the number of houses on my road increased, so too did the traffic and the body count.

The final death sentence for the turtles was a 60-home subdivision. Construction vehicles first and then cars were a constant on the road. I was gladdened by those motorists who stopped to let the turtles pass, but they were far outnumbered by those who did not.

Short of quitting my job for two months and keeping 24-hour vigil, there was little I could do to stop the slaughter.

But I persevered. I marked their nesting sites, mowed my lawn cautiously as I watched for them in the grass, and tried to educate my neighbors on the turtles’ ways. I even attempted a clumsy Caesarean on a dead spotted turtle, thinking I could salvage her eggs and be a surrogate parent.

But every year the number of dead turtles increased, annually including two or three spotted turtles.

When we sold the home after nearly 30 years, I wondered who would watch out for the turtles. I left the new owner a carefully written instruction sheet on where the turtles nested in the yard, when the quarter-size hatchlings emerged, and the care to take when driving on the road. I hope she’s paying attention. I know I am.

More so than ever now when I drive roads near water, I take care – my eyes always on the road surface for the glint of sun off wet black domes or the dusty gray of a basking turtle. It is the most penance I can do.

By Greg Lowell, Coverts Cooperator

Photo taken by Jack Gleason, Master Gardener and Tree Steward