“If you build it they will come” fails for turtle crossings
By Sarah Zelinski | 1 | It’s really too bad that turtles can’t read. | 2 | If they did, it would make saving them so much easier. When people create an ecopassage1 so the reptiles can safely cross a road by going underneath or over it, they could let the animals know with little signs saying “Don’t become roadkill! Safe crossing, left 20 meters.” | 3 | Instead, we have to rely on fencing to keep the turtles and snakes off roads, which is a good idea because 98 percent or more of turtles are killed in their first attempt at a road crossing. But the reliance on fences may be a problem, a new study shows. When there aren’t effective fences to keep the reptiles out, they don’t use the ecopassages, James Baxter-Gilbert of Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, and colleagues report March 25 in PLOS ONE. | 4 | The study looked at the effectiveness of a series of ecopassages built along a 13-kilometer stretch of Highway 69/40 near Burwash, Ontario, near Lake Huron, a region with high reptile biodiversity. The passages ran beneath the highway and were paired with fencing along the road. The researchers looked at reptile activity along the roadway before and after the project was constructed, and also used another stretch of highway, near the Magnetawan First Nation, as a comparison. | 5 | They surveyed the roadside and put up cameras in the ecopassages to see what kind of animals used the crossings. They captured Blanding’s turtles and snapping turtles, and tracked their movements with radio transmitters. And they took painted turtles and placed them on the other side of the highway from their wetlands to see if they could make their way home through the tunnels. | 6 | Animals used the ecopassages, the study revealed, but the most common patrons of the underground passageways were ducks and geese. Few reptiles traveled through them. And, worse, turtles and snakes didn’t stay off the roads. The number of reptiles on the roadway near the ecopassages actually increased after they were put in place, resulting in lots of dead snakes and turtles. | 7 | A small part of the problem may be that many turtles, at least, don’t really want to use the ecopassages. The researchers tested the turtles’ willingness to enter the passages, and most turtles either took so long that the scientists gave up (69 percent) or the turtles refused to go in (22 percent). | 8 | But the bigger failure was in the fencing. Along three kilometers of road, rips, holes and washouts had caused 115 gaps. During the spring melt, up to 30 percent of the fence was submerged. And other areas had been left completely unfenced. In total, the researchers calculate, about two-thirds of the road was lined with permeable fence. | 9 | The solution: Build better fences. “Roads are meant to be long-lasting structures,” the researchers note, “and mitigation measures [to protect wildlife] should be equally long-lasting.” | | 1ecopassage: tunnel or guidewall that allows wildlife to cross under structures such as bridges | | “‘If you build it they will come’ fails for turtle crossings,” by Sarah Zielinski, from Science News. March 25, 2015. | | Tortoise Underpasses from the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration Web site | 10 | Imagine several hundred desert tortoises wearing name tags. | 11 | That was the scene a few years ago on Mojave Desert land along State Highway 58 in San Bernardino County, California. Locating and tagging the tortoises was the first step in a multi-agency project to monitor the tortoises’ use of new storm-drain culverts2 spanning the width of the highway. Eight federal and state partners were involved—the California Department of Transportation, the Bureau of Land Management, the California Energy Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Federal Highway Administration, the Nevada Department of Transportation, the California Department of Fish and Game, and the U.S. Geological Survey. | 12 | Since desert tortoises move rather slowly and within a limited home range, finding them and attaching IDs to their shells was relatively easy. Developing a reliable system for tracking their passage into and out of culverts proved more difficult. | 13 | “We needed an automated system that could be left unattended from March through October, when the tortoises were not hibernating,” says William Boarman, USGS biologist and project manager. “We also wanted it to be secure from vandalism and environmental damage.” | 14 | The research team’s solution: Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tags and a computerized reading system. The PIT-tag system, used primarily to census3 fish, was adapted by AVID, Inc. and Beigel Technology Corporation to meet the criteria of the desert tortoise project. Easy maintenance was achieved by using a renewable energy source—solar panels and a solar-rechargeable battery. Protection from theft and environmental damage (for example, high summer temperatures) was accomplished by burying the system’s receiver and antennae underground and camouflaging them with desert soil. (Protecting the solar panels, which could not be hidden and which were frequently stolen, required more complicated measures). | 15 | Here’s how the PIT-tag system worked: When a tortoise entered or left a culvert, it passed through an electromagnetic field emitted from a “reader” tuned to a specific radio frequency. The reader detected and decoded the tortoise’s ID (programmed into the memory of the system’s microchip), and a datalogger4 inside the reader recorded it along with the date and time of passage. | 16 | Throughout the research project, team members paid attention to the smallest details. They attached the PIT tags to the tortoises’ shells with an Epoxy glue that would not hurt the shells. They programmed the reading system to turn itself off at night (desert tortoises are active only during the day). They consulted a world-class surfboard designer to come up with a well-insulated “house” for the reader coil. They buried each reader in locked “nesting boxes.” They designed the reading coil to cover an 8-foot (2.4 m) area, overcoming the short-distance limitations of PIT-tag technology. | 17 | The system recorded five tortoises using the culverts on 75 occasions in 1995 and 1996. Since the small vertebrates have no identifiable “corridor” and move at a leisurely pace (it took one tortoise seven hours—stopping and starting—to get through a culvert), these numbers are likely to increase as the tortoises gradually discover the culverts. | 18 | The solar-powered PIT-tag system used on the Highway 58 project can be used on almost any narrow wildlife crossing, according to Michael Beigel of Beigel Technology. Says Beigel: “If you need more power, you can make simple adaptations—bigger batteries, additional solar panels, or moving solar panels.” | 19 | The system is also easily adaptable to other species. “It can be used for virtually every animal you can catch,” says Boarman. | | 2culverts: channels that allow water to pass under structures like roads or bridges
3census: to count or to take a tally of a population
4datalogger: an electronic device that records information over time | | “Tortoise Underpasses,” from the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration Web site. In the public domain. | | from “Rise in Roadkill Requires New Solutions” by Melissa Gaskill Vehicle-wildlife collisions kill millions of animals—and harm thousands of people—each year. Scientists are working on solutions. | | This article explains biologist Matt Aresco’s efforts to save turtles and other wildlife from being hit by cars while crossing Highway 27 in Florida. | 20 | . . . Specially designed crossings, typically vegetation-rich over- or under-passes, have proved remarkably successful at reducing animal-vehicle collisions. But proper design matters. | 21 | The makeshift barrier Aresco put up in April 2000 funneled5 Lake Jackson wildlife through a single 3.6-meter drainage culvert. This often required animals to travel relatively long distances, putting them at risk of overheating and predation. Aresco continued to walk the barrier daily until August 2006, ferrying turtles, snakes and frogs across the busy, four-lane road—first in one direction, then the other, in response to water conditions. In those four years he recorded more than 11,000 animals, including 9,000-plus turtles, attempting to cross. Hundreds continued to die doing so; some climbed over the barriers, and the fencing material degraded rapidly in the hot Florida sun and was repeatedly damaged by mowers, vandals and storm runoff. The biologist once broke his hand making repairs, sporting a cast for six weeks. | 22 | Aresco saw the need for a more enduring solution, and set out to find one. He formed the nonprofit Lake Jackson Ecopassage Alliance in 2002, and the group convinced the Florida Department of Transportation (DOT) to conduct a feasibility study. Completed in 2004, it recommended three to four additional culverts and permanent barriers on both sides of the highway. The local transportation authority approved the recommendation, but use of federal funds required an environmental study, a process that stretched into early 2007. Meanwhile, Hurricane Dennis dumped nearly 23 centimeters of rain in July 2005, damaging much of the still temporary fencing and resulting in a car killing a two-meter-long alligator. Rain broke fence sections again in September 2006. By then Aresco had gone to work as director of Nokuse Plantation, a private wildlife preserve two hours away, and had stopped his daily patrols. “That was really hard, knowing there were times there would be breaks in the fence and turtles killed as a result,” he recalls. “But it just convinced me even more there needed to be a permanent solution, not just one person to maintain these flimsy fences for the rest of time.” | | Roadkill to nil | 23 | Aresco continued to face setbacks. While he and Alliance volunteers labored to replace the entire length of fence in September 2007, a passing motorist stole eight rolls of the new, UV-resistant material. Nearly 45 centimeters of rain from Tropical Storm Fay damaged the barrier yet again in 2008. Finally, under increasing public pressure, the regional transportation authority and then the DOT made the passage a priority. Construction began in September 2009, and one year later, 1.2-meter-high plastic walls directed wildlife into four culverts along 1.6 kilometers of U.S. 27. The cost: only $3 million; the result: turtle roadkill dropped to zero. That was an “extremely satisfying” end to 10 years of hard work for Aresco. “From the first day I went out there and discovered the problem, putting an end to it motivated me, no matter how long it took.” | | 5 funneled: channeled or directed through a tube or corridor | | Excerpt from “Rise in Roadkill Requires New Solutions,” by Melissa Gaskill, from Scientific American. May 16, 2013. |

Writing Prompt 1
Write an objective summary essay about the challenges faced with keeping animals safe. Your essay must be based upon ideas, concepts, and information that can be determined through analysis of the three passages.
Manage your time carefully so that you can * Plan your essay * Write your essay
Be sure to * Include a claim * Address counterclaims * Use evidence from multiple sources * Avoid over relying on one source
Your written response should be in the form of a multi-paragraph essay. Spend about 90 minutes on this essay, including the time you spend reading the passage(s), planning, and writing your essay.

Writing Prompt 2
Write an argumentative essay taking a position on whether wildlife crossings are successful at protecting turtles and tortoises. Your essay must be based upon ideas, concepts, and information that can be determined through analysis of the three passages.
Manage your time carefully so that you can * Plan your essay * Write your essay
Be sure to * Include a claim * Address counterclaims * Use evidence from multiple sources * Avoid over relying on one source
Your written response should be in the form of a multi-paragraph essay. Spend about 90 minutes on this essay, including the time you spend reading the passage(s), planning, and writing your essay.