Saving the terrapins

It ain’t easy being green — olive green, like many diamondback terrapin moms — especially on the roads through the salt marshes of the Jersey Shore.

At the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, as part
of the diamondback terrapin conservation project led by Dr. Roger
Wood, Research Director, terrapins get microchips ,weighed and
measured. Here a terrapin sits calmly on a makeshift plastic stand
used in weighing the turtle. — At the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, as part of the diamondback terrapin conservation project led by Dr. Roger Wood, Research Director, terrapins get microchips ,weighed and measured. Here a terrapin sits calmly on a makeshift plastic stand used in weighing the turtle.Read moreSharon Gekoski-Kimmel

Published May 21, 2010, 2:30 a.m. ET

It ain't easy being green — olive green, like many diamondback terrapin moms — especially on the roads through the salt marshes of the Jersey Shore.

According to Dr. Roger Wood, professor of zoology at Richard Stockton College and director of conservation and research at the Wetlands Institute, in Stone Harbor, anywhere from 350 to 700 terrapins are run over every year by drivers.

Why does the terrapin cross the road? Well, yes, like the chicken, to get to the other side, but not because she really wants to. Most terrapins are just trying to find a safe place to lay their eggs from late May to mid-July.

"Their natural nesting places have been eliminated over time," said Wood. "That would have been the sand dunes where Atlantic City and Wildwood and Avalon are now. So they had to find alternative places."

In many cases, the alternative is an embankment along the roadside but above the water level of the salt marshes where they usually live. Wood's Wetlands Institute volunteers have erected knee-high, plastic-mesh fences separating the embankments from the roads in many places to keep nesting terrapins away from harm.

But, as with motels at the Shore in season, there isn't always room for everyone, and many terrapins head off in search of a nesting place of their own.

One unlucky Jersey terrapin caused chaos on the Garden State Parkway back in June 2007. A 65-year-old woman swerved near milepost 21 to avoid it and flipped her car into the embankment. The woman, luckily, survived the crash with minor injuries, but when Good Samaritans came to her aid, they noticed that another car had smooshed the terrapin.

Wood said that if drivers see a terrapin in the road, they should pull off safely to the side and come pick her up - at which point, she will probably pull in her head and legs.

"They are not aggressive and they actually are probably thinking, 'Why don't they just go away?' " he said. Nonetheless, said Wood, it is best that drivers help the poor ladies out by placing them on the embankment toward which they were heading.

"It will be obvious, and you will have done a good deed for the turtle population."

- Robert Strauss