The Turtle Who Wants to Cross the Road

A Bass Connections team seeks to create safe corridors for reptiles and amphibians living in the region’s nature preserves

A box turtle on the left and salamanders on the right
Box turtle (left) and a two four-toed salamanders (right) in Duke Forest (Photos: Nicolette Cagle (box turtle) and Duke Forest Community Science Volunteers (four-toed salamanders)

This is a summary of a story written by Sarah Grace Engel Thompson on Duke Bass Connections.

An eastern box turtle living in the New Hope Creek watershed near Duke’s campus wants to leave its habitat in search of resources or a mate. What are its safest routes without getting crushed on a busy road?

North Carolina’s official state reptile will soon receive help from a newly formed Bass Connections team working to create safe corridors for reptiles and amphibians living in the region’s nature preserves.

Duke Forest director Sara Childs; Nicolette Cagle, a senior lecturer at the Nicholas School of the Environment; and Shannan Hayes, associate director of undergraduate engagement at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, have teamed up with Nicholas School lecturing fellow Clay Noss and Ph.D. student Caroline Rowley to lead the Bass Connections project during the upcoming academic year.  

Childs and Cagle have a mutual interest in how animals move between protected areas. They both have long-term involvement with Triangle Land Conservancy and the Triangle Connectivity Collaborative. The community organizations are working to overcome habitat fragmentation that disrupts species movement by implementing strategies like wildlife corridors.

Hayes became involved with the project after Childs invited her to attend a workshop hosted by the Indigenous-led environmental justice organization 7 Directions of Service. The workshop explored what’s known as a Rights of Nature framework as a means of understanding ecology and conservation, where animals are viewed not as objects to be used or studied, but as beings with rights — including the right to move.

Childs, Cagle and Hayes are planning for all team members to become enmeshed in each aspect of the project — data collection, GIS analysis and ethics.

“We feel really confident that (students) will walk away with some interdisciplinary notions around conservation and practice and ways of knowing that they hadn’t considered before,” Childs said.

To find out more about the project, visit Duke Bass Connections.