It’s summer and turtles are on the move—but while they are on the lookout for mates and nesting sites, they definitely aren’t looking both ways before crossing the street. Which is where a new study comes in.
Aswini Cherukuri, a former NC State veterinary student now in private practice in Maryland, used data from the College of Veterinary Medicine’s (CVM) Turtle Rescue Team to determine whether there were locations around the Triangle that were more hazardous for turtles than others. The research is published in The Journal of Wildlife Management.
“I did it because vehicular trauma is far and away the most common form of injury for the turtles that people bring in,” Cherukuri says. “Turtle populations are declining, and much of the reason is due to what we refer to as ‘anthropogenic stressors,” or pressure put on them by human activity…