Title:

Why did the turtle cross the road? Examining culvert location and design to reduce Blanding's Turtle road mortality

Blanding’s Turtles are a threatened species in New Hampshire. They are often victims of road mortality, struck by vehicles while crossing roads that bisect their residential wetlands. They are a long-lived species that reach reproductive maturity around 14 years of age (Compton, 2007). As with many slow-to-mature species, the death of a few Blanding’s individuals, particularly mature females, can be detrimental to population health. Vehicle collisions pose a great threat to Blanding’s population such that conservation efforts should be directed at reducing the probabilities of these encounters. Eco-passages are widely used to reconnect fragmented landscapes and reduce vehicles collisions. For roads that bisect wetlands there is an opportunity to utilize existing hydraulic culverts for eco-passage functionality. This project will investigate a select list of stream crossings, highlight sites that pose high risk of road mortality for Blanding’s, identify design components that promote successful passage and create conceptual restoration designs for five sites.

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