Easily overlooked: a wild Eastern Box Turtle who hatched last year in a Virginia backyard.
Summer is here in the United States, and as well as backyard barbeque parties, that also means regular lawn mowing. Summer is also the time that female turtles move about to find their preferred places to nest, and last year’s hatchlings are exploring their new world. The encounter between a lawnmower and a turtle all too frequently ends in tragedy, even if not noticed by the human; but we can do something about that! Turtles move about mostly early in the morning, in the late afternoon/early evening, and during and after rain. During the heat of the day, Box Turtles are mostly tucked away in and under dense tall vegetation. So if you have a choice, it’s best to mow your lawn in the middle of a dry day, which not only minimizes the risk to turtles, but also to bees and any other animals in the grass. Other practices that help prevent mowing accidents is to set your mower blades at 4 inches high, and to mow ‘from the center out’, meaning that any animals are ‘pushed out’ to the safety of flowerbeds or shrubbery at the edge of the lawn. And should you see a turtle while mowing, or crossing a road, please move it out of the way by taking it to a safe patch of habitat in the direction that the animal was already going. Together, we can make this a safe and successful summer for all of us!