By John Francis
Anybody who has driven on Highway 6 south of Tobermory will have noticed the string of fenceposts that are being installed on both sides of the road in the wetland section north of Cameron Lake Road.
What are they? We considered contacting the Ministry of Transport to find out, but they don’t usually respond to information requests in a timely fashion.While we were “considering our options”, a friend of mine took a more direct approach — she stopped and asked the folk installating the fenceposts.
It’s going be wildlife fencing, she was told. It’s being installed by MOT, in cooperation with Saugeen Ojibway Nation and Parks Canada. (Thanks, Scarlett!!)
A snake-and-turtle fence.
It would be easy to dismiss this as overkill — after all, we’ve never needed it before, so why now?
I got my answer when I went to take some pictures. I was there about ten minutes. Close to a hundred cars went by during that time.
What are the chances that a snake or a turtle could cross that road without getting squashed? With eight or ten cars per minute, I’m betting against the reptiles.
It wasn’t that long ago that Highway 6 had a whole lot less traffic, especially during the May/June activity peak for reptiles and amphibians. But those days are gone.
Wildlife fencing is inconvenient and annoying, but then, getting squashed is even more inconvenient.
The other thing our roads have done is to create perfect places for turtles to bury their eggs. Highways and roads use a substrate of gravel, which extends well beyond the travelled lanes. That gravel feels absolutely perfect to gravid female turtles, so that’s where they lay their eggs. This in turn makes a perfect string of turtle nests for foxes, coyotes and raccoons to clean out at leisure.
Enter the dedicated volunteers who install nest-covering boxes on every turtle nest they see. (Thanks, Turtle Trackers!)
Roads are really hard on wildlife in general, but especially on reptiles and amphibians. Without the fences and the volunteers, they face a bleak future.
