Why Did the Turtle Cross the Highway?

This is due to two obvious reasons - among others. One is climate. The other is human population impact in some parts here, more than others. Though climate is changing for the warmer, the slow speed with which so-called warmer climate reptiles and amphibians are moving here reflects the change's impact (small). Also, unlike birds, which can just drop in (Mockingbirds, a southern species, have moved here over the last thirty years in force) or plants, which by their pollen can either blow or be brought in (like by birds, for instance) reptiles and amphibians have to either crawl in, swim in, or be passively introduced. (The same could be said of fish, which either swim in or are passively introduced.)

When the climate changed for the colder five or so thousand years ago here - after a few hundred years of climate and terrain altering warmth - most warmer climate reptile and amphibian (referred to as "herptile") species such as they then were simply died out. They were conveyed north in the first place by swimming, crawling, or by human introduction over hundreds of warming years (even thousands of years ago, some reptiles and amphibians were used in medicine and as transportable food - such as turtles, as archaeological evidence suggests ). With human island communities and highways plus controlled waterways such as they exist in the northeast, today, already-decimated and tiny herptile populations in the south will have difficulty extending ranges north (and vice versa). Such interruptions in the terrain stops the pedestrian-style penetration herptiles use to enter areas.

Highways can account for attrition, here. As herptiles attempt to cross, they are crushed flat or made visible to predators like hawks, etc., and many of these small animals see highway and human-altered waterways as impassable obstacles, anyway. Highways are fountains of vibration. Vibration alone - to which reptiles are sensitive - scares them off. If four to six lanes of major highway intervene over a fifty-mile critical zone of forest- laced marsh (of which I-95 North is a perfect example) these animals will themselves evolve into island animals, separate from those on the other side. This is especially so if fifty miles of suburban housing blocks them in the other direction. If one spot is drained and housed in, an entire population can be removed. Most trying to traverse such an obstacle as a four-lane highway will be flattened, though some get through. In Great Britain, highway planners have actually seen fit to build under-highway passes suited to herptile migration and range extension in affected areas. They actually work, mostly for migratory frogs and toads - perhaps the most beneficial of "herps" as regards humans. We doubt that much trouble is taken in Massachusetts for such things. Even if herptiles are vital food chain predators that eat their weights in insects, etc., the need for special engineering projects dedicated to herptiles is seen as an extra taxpayer's expense or else is laughed off by the ruling hierarchy predominating in construction and public works entities. (Ardent religious beliefs as to herptiles being a sign of the demon among us still influence serious decisions in such matters - believe it or not.) Under-highway culverts for water or sewage and other drainage or communication-route devices that take subterranean paths usually serve the purpose of heptile trans-migration at the northeast's highways' lips. Or else the animals choose to run the gauntlet. Darkness in the early morning means the highways are warm and less congested, so cold blooded animals sensitive to vibration and warmth make their move.

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