By Adam Frisk Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
For turtles that call Haliburton Highlands home, survival is a numbers game with increasingly deadly odds.
According to researchers with the Turtle Guardians, a program of The Land Between charity, a single snapping turtle may have to cross a roadway up to 16 times in a single migration season.
“You can’t redirect a turtle,” Leora Berman, founder and chief operating officer of The Land Between and Turtle Guardians, said in an interview last week. “This is the problem. It’s an enormous problem for turtles. And for drivers, but really for turtles.”
The organization has been quietly mapping and studying turtle habitats since 2010, and has recently reached a major milestone by completing what is believed to be the longest road study of its kind in North America, Berman said.
“We’re beginning to use that data to look at hot spots, like where are the worst spots for turtles,” she said.
The Turtle Guardians identified 970 potential crossing sites on rural routes across the Highlands, 97 of those in Haliburton County alone. However, identifying a problem site is easier than fixing it, Berman said. After accounting for driveways and technical constraints, researchers found that only five per cent of these sites are currently feasible for highpriority infrastructure.
“There are no turtles left in the cities because of roads and habitat loss,” she said. “Here, we are working our butts off to make sure our great-great-grandchildren can still see them.”
The organization has been testing a “pioneering” ecopassage fencing system at four priority locations. Berman explained that while past industrial attempts, like those on
Hwy. 69, have faced failures due to frost heave and maintenance issues, this new local design focuses on durability and simplicity. “Hwy. 69 is a classic example where millions of dollars were spent on this fencing system with areas where animals could get off the road,” she said. “But there were so many failures in it that now there are hardly any animals left in that whole zone.”
The design uses repurposed materials like heavy-duty steel barrels and a “skateboard ramp” concept that can be entirely backfilled, ensuring small animals like snakes and frogs don’t get trapped on the road. Another design concept features a folding fence system for steep areas that can be deployed in the spring and removed for the winter.
The project is awaiting $10,000 in engineering testing and patent approval. Once it gets the green light, the design could one day be adopted as a standard by the Ministry of Transportation and municipal road departments.
Berman noted that long-time residents report a total absence of the massive snapping turtles that once dominated the waterways.
“Mortality is going up, not down,” she said. “If you lose 20 per cent of the turtles in your area, they’ll be extinct within 20 years.”
As the summer season approaches, Turtle Guardians is seeking volunteers for road patrols and support for the excavation and incubation program, now the largest in Ontario. Residents are also encouraged to call the hotline at 705-854-2888 to report injured or nesting turtles.
“Adults are essential for the next generations,” Berman said. “Without breeding adults, you’re done.”
