RESTORE COOTES

Turtles move slow but they can cover a lot of ground. When the weather warms in the spring, male and female turtles start to roam, with female turtles seeking nesting sites to lay eggs. They are busiest during May and June, but will be making their rounds anytime between April and October ( Source ).  The babies hatch later in the summer or early fall and are born into a world of danger, with predators being a top hazard, but roads play a role in reducing the hatchling's survival rates.  Less than 1 in a hundred turtle eggs laid will hatch and grow into an adult turtle. ( Source )    Turtles take a long time to reach sexual maturity, meaning that maintaining a robust population requires protection. Adult snapping turtles, for instance, have a 99% survival rate in the wild, but road mortality tips the scales against them. The loss of a fertile adult female creates a huge deficit in the survivability of the species in a region.  A good source for information on tu...

Watching the flashing "Turtle Crossing" warning signs on Cootes, I remain skeptical about the effect on traffic speed. The only thing I've seen that actually slowed traffic along here was when the lanes are reduced to half capacity, and moved to one side of the centre median (see video). This temporary road engineering creates conditions that strongly discourage speeding, and I think it would be a much-needed safety improvement on the regular divided highway layout. Such a roard treatement would also have the added benefit - if we truly want to help turtles survive - of decreasing the crossing distance for wildlife by well over half the current road width. The best solution likely remains temporary road closures during turtle nesting times, as the city of Burlington does for Jefferson Salamanders on King Road. As long as the closure is well advertised in advance, drivers could adjust their trips accordingly. We will watch to see what emerges as an effe...

Usually, standing on the median between the northbound/southbound lanes of Cootes Drive would be an unnerving experience, due to the high speed traffic clocking in at 80km/hour and more. But during construction, the closure of the southbound lane of Cootes Drive (see video) has calmed traffic speeds and made the road quieter and safer. With Spencer Creek and ponds to the left of the road, and Cootes Paradise Nature Sanctuary wetlands to the right, the inhabitants of the natural environment fare poorly when forced to interact with traffic. The huge distance between the shoulders of the road are a major barrier for amphibian and other wetland species, including species at risk like Cootes Paradise's turtle population. When the road was built in 1936-37, it was built as an example of the new modern highway design: divided lanes with a grassy median, easy curves and low grades. These innovations were achieved in this instance by removing hills and then using the soil to fill i...

Out of sight, but not out of hearing range, the 403 disrupts the quiet on the Ginger Valley Trail at the eastern edge of Cootes Paradise. Cootes Drive does the same at the western end. Walking along the Ginger Valley trail my 15-year-old daughter commented that she can't remember ever walking on a trail where she couldn't hear traffic. Roads bisect and disrupt the natural areas we have, fragmenting both habitat, and the experience of habitat. Even when out of sight, traffic interferes with the enjoyment of nature, and has become the background soundtrack to our lives. The ironic thing is, to escape, we must get in cars and drive hours away, and even then, must work to get away from vehicular noise. Is there a place locally that defies the constant hum or drone of motor vehicles?