v T C b S L ® WWy ildlifeildlife TracksTracksa O B G q A PUBLICATION OF THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE HSUS WILDLIFE LAND TRUST Volume 8, Number 2, Spring, 2004 Turtles and Highways: Vehicles killed another 250 turtles in just 40 days: Florida cooters, yellow-bellied sliders, musk turtles, mud turtles, Florida softshell turtles, snapping turtles, and box turtles - big and small, new hatchlings, and RESCO J. A Crossing the Killing Zone 40-year-old adults. TTHEW A M From flimsy fences to a grassroots somehow she knows that there is water in get out, and race toward her. I would only effort to build an ecopassage the distance. She forces her large, ar- have a few seconds to save her. A line of mored body through the thick vegetation, rush hour traffic is rapidly approaching, By Matthew J. Aresco and by afternoon she slowly climbs the and the turtle has paused in the center of steep slope that leads to the highway, slid- the northbound lane, confused and he roar of an 18-wheeler is ing back down several times before reach- trying to get a bearing on her position. followed by a blast of air as it ing the top. After pausing to rest, she Seeing me running towards her, she pulls passes. Hidden in the low brush leaves the cover of the roadside brush and her head into the safety of her shell, not at the edge of U.S. Highway 27 stretches her neck, using all her senses to aware that the real danger is the rolling near Tallahassee, Florida, is a guide her. Water and a new home are only Continued on page 3 TFlorida cooter, a turtle that hatched from a few hundred yards away, but the land- an egg on the shores of Lake Jackson fif- scape between her and her goal is unfa- teen years ago. She lived well in the lake miliar. She cannot know that the short See Inside and grew large, but today she must leave. stretch of open ground ahead is a killing The lake waters have been slowly reced- zone for turtles, only that she must get to Turtles, continued 3 ing for months, so this morning she the other side. Captive Wildlife 7 crawled out of a muddy, drying pool to Driving north on U.S. 27, I squint and begin a dangerous migration to find new see the familiar silhouette a quarter mile Pumas in the West 11 water. Ancient instincts direct her west; away. I quickly pull my truck off the road, H E L P I N G G R O U P S B E C O M E M O R E E F F E C T I V E I N P R O T E C T I N G W I L D L I F E A N D T H E I R E C O S Y S T E M S Letter from the Editor Wildlife Tracks Mission and Goals: Over 5,000 wildlife and habitat pro- tection organizations nationwide are hough many of us look forward to spring working to stop the rapid disappearance and summer months as a break from of wildlife and the destruction of their harsh winter weather, this is also a time habitat. Wildlife Tracks combines the T power of information, the power of net- when we are reminded—in a very graphic working and the power of people to way—of our impacts on the natural world: strengthen local, state and national grassroots movements to preserve and re- Roadkill. store wildlife and the ecosystems they In most areas, data on the frequency of need for their survival. road-related wildlife mortality are lacking. But Goals: the number of wild animals killed on roads • To expedite the exchange of expe- certainly seems to increase noticeably at this rience and information between time of year, perhaps due to movements re- wildlife and habitat organizations, while increasing the efficiency and lated to reproduction or a shift in animals’ effectiveness of their efforts. foraging areas between winter and spring. The • To empower the grassroots by shar- ing the successful efforts to preserve loss of individual animals along our roadways wildlife and ecosystems and to in- is bad enough, but these losses could also be spire them to expand their vision considered a reflection of the larger problems and strategy to achieve long-term solutions. caused by highways, such as habitat fragmen- • To assist in building responsible and tation and the inhibition of dispersal or mi- credible organizations by providing information and guidance. gratory movements of wildlife. In this issue of Wildlife Tracks (WT), Matthew Staff: Aresco of the Lake Jackson Ecopassage Alli- John W. Grandy, Senior Vice President, ance describes the large-scale turtle migration Wildlife Programs, HSUS Bette Stallman, Senior Editor across Florida’s Highway 27 that marked the Debra Firmani, Managing Editor beginning of his work to provide safe passage Tanya Mulford, Associate Editor Andrea Cimino, Editorial Assistant for turtles and other wildlife. Here, we do have Jenni Haas, Designer data, thanks to Aresco’s careful record-keep- ing over the past four years, and the tally of Board of Advisors: turtles and other animals that have died Danielle Bays, Kevin Bixby, Henry Brzezinski, David Carle, here—as well as the thousands that would have Linda Hatfield, Anne Miller, died without his help—is alarming. Aresco’s Ruth Musgrave, Diane Nixon, Allen Rutberg, Louisa Willcox tireless work is an inspiration. But, as he points lection from Bernard Unti’s recent book, Pro- out, this cannot continue indefinitely; a per- tecting All Animals: A Fifty-Year History of The Wildlife Tracks Office: manent solution is needed for Lake Jackson Humane Society of the United States. This excerpt The Humane Society of the and for other high-risk roadways. United States chronicles work by The HSUS to improve the Wildlife and Habitat Protection Another form of human-caused mortality welfare of captive wildlife. 2100 L Street, NW may be negatively impacting pumas in the In future issues, we expect to provide ar- Washington DC 20037 Phone: 301-258-3147 western United States. In this issue of WT, ticles on the use of captive wildlife for educa- Fax: 301-258-3080 Wendy Keefover-Ring of Sinapu explains why tional purposes, the public health concerns E-mail: [email protected] the current management of pumas in western related to Canada geese, and the impacts of © The Humane Society of the United States and The states may be resulting in higher mortality than wildlife diseases on conservation. HSUS Wildlife Land Trust, 2004. To reprint any or all of Wildlife Tracks, please contact Bette Stallman at The Hu- puma populations can withstand. Sport hunt- Please contact us if there are specific top- mane Society of the U.S. at the above address. Permis- sion will generally be granted if credit is given to The ing quotas for pumas are increasing in many ics you would like to see covered in WT, or if Humane Society of the United States. western states with few protections for female you would like to contribute an article to WT. The views expressed in these articles represent those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of pumas and cubs. Keefover-Ring warns that lib- Bette Stallman The Humane Society of the United States or those of The HSUS Wildlife Land Trust. The HSUS and The eral puma hunting regulations are especially The Humane Society of the United States HSUS Wildlife Land Trust encourage the grassroots use of all actions that educate and encourage the humane problematic because so few data are available 2100 L Street, NW and proper treatment of human and non-human ani- mals; however, we do not promote or support the use regarding puma population size and demog- Washington, DC 20037 of any action that violates federal, state, or local laws raphy in the west. and regulations in this process. phone: 301-258-3147 We are also continuing our celebration of fax: 301-258-3080 werty the 50th anniversary of The HSUS with a se- email: [email protected] e W I L D L I F E T R A C K S • S P R I N G 2 0 0 4 2 TURTLES, cont. from front page the highway and instead direct thunder of the machines pi- them into a large drainage cul- loted by motorists oblivious vert that connects Lake Jack- to her plight. I snatch her son and Little Lake Jackson. off the road and look back The department agreed to do- as twenty sets of wheels nate some material, 2-foot- rocket over the spot where high woven nylon silt fencing she had rested only a few attached to wooden stakes, the moments ago. same erosion control fencing Scattered along the high- used on construction sites. (I way lay the remains of did not use wire fencing be- turtles that had not been so RESCO cause even small mesh sizes lucky. On that day, I J. A would allow small turtles to TTHEW A counted 90 dead turtles M pass through.) I constructed along a third of a mile sec- Ideally, ecopassages should be designed to mitigate the effects of highway 3,000-foot fences along the tion of the northbound side mortality and habitat fragmentation for the full diversity of fauna affected by a margin of each side of U.S. 27. particular highway, including reptiles and amphibians. of U.S. 27.