This wild box turtle was sitting very still by the side of the road when I happened to spot him as we sped by and then turned around to go back and help him cross the road. We put the little video camera on the road at a little distance and then went back and got in the car to give him some space to do what he would do, since sometimes wild turtles will continue on their way if given this space (especially if they don’t completely close up in their shells). Waiting a wild turtle out until it moves can also help determine for sure which way the turtle wants to cross (although this one was definitely facing toward the road and not away from it).
This turtle, however, refused to move. By contrast, we had just helped a wild male painted turtle cross the road who started to cross it despite lots more traffic whizzing by than on this box turtle’s road. He intrigued me even more when I watched the video later: everything—cars, insects, the wind--moves except this turtle.
When I studied acting, sometimes the quest to find out more about the character you wished to portray involved finding more questions than answers—or, the answers were in the questions. Watching the video, this wild box turtle’s behavior prompted the following questions:
Was he hurt? Sometimes a wild turtle’s injuries aren’t immediately evident. When we eventually helped this turtle cross the road, he appeared unharmed.
Was he afraid of the video camera? Our own turtles when videoed are sometimes distracted by the camera, although in those cases the camera is much closer and we wonder if they see their reflections in the lens.
Was he a very wild turtle and just really afraid of us? We have encountered all kinds of wild turtles and this one’s frozen behavior was unusual by comparison.
Was he terrified of the cars and simply summoning up the nerve to cross as he watched them go by? You can see his reaction to some of them. More often than not, I have seen wild turtles march head-on into oncoming traffic despite the danger. Even though the traffic on this road that day wasn’t constant, it was still hard to imagine this turtle’s ability to cross safely between oncoming traffic.
Had he been hit by a car before? There was maybe some slight damage to his upper shell (or carapace, the bottom shell is called the plastron) but we have seen many wild turtles with far more obvious shell damage who did not appear this afraid.
Was he waiting to warm up more, hoping to get more sun to speed up his metabolism before crossing? Again, it was warm enough for the painted turtle to try and speed across—but it was not all that warm that day for turtles (maybe 73 degrees)—and painted turtles tend to be more cold hardy than box turtles. We recently helped a young snapping turtle cross who was also just sitting still in the sun on the side of the road, perhaps warming himself before crossing (although another young snapping turtle went ahead and crossed at the same time just a little north of us, so it was warm enough for that turtle).
Had he just come out of hibernation? Chances are if that were true, he would not have come this far to the side of the road to just sit there.
There is one more wrinkle to the mystery of this box turtle. To read more about it, SCROLL DOWN…
