Quote:
Originally Posted by wdfifteen
About ten years ago we saw turtles on the road around here everyplace. It lasted about 2 weeks. The carnage was awful, and I probably picked up a dozen on the route to work in that time. In the 8 years before and 10 years since, I've probably seen one on that route. I don't know what the deal was. It was like they all got the call from the mothership and started walking to the rendezvous point like zombies.
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Many more years ago than that, driving through Missouri on the way to CA, daylight, farmland, before interstate hwys, midweek and the only car on whatever 65 mph, 2 lane state highway it was, probably doing at least 65, wife napping in the passenger seat of the van.
Noticed a discoloration of the asphalt up ahead, braked to probably 45 and the van began sliding as it turned out that thousands and thousands of tortoises the size of a...cut down, little kid's crash helmets? were crossing the road!
The crunching, popping sounds were sickening. I got the van down to about 25 and, seeing the color change back to asphalt not far ahead, so I drove through them. Or stop In their midst and wait until the migration, or whatever, was over.
But, there was no sign of that happening soon from the looks of the undiminished numbers of tortoises entering the road. And we both felt like we we'd been thrust into a horrifying Hitchcock movie so I drove through them. Very sad, but...
Had tortoises in OH and PA when I was a kid, but
never saw anything like this!
Do tortoises migrate?
Why does a tortoise cross the road?
Seriously, all the above is true and you're the first person I've run accross who knows what I'm talking about.