Clemson Turtle Study Reveals Disturbing Human Nature

Turtles have always faced an immense amount of environmental pressure, and that pressure has only increased due to the actions of humans. Around the nation, turtles are under extreme pressure from the increasing construction of road ways; it takes a fairly long time for a turtle to cross a road, and doing so safely is becoming more difficult. On top of this added pressure, turtles live a long time, meaning that they reproduce rather slowly, and are unable to replenish their numbers at the rate they are losing them. Taking almost 7 or 8 years to reach reproductive maturity (and likely crossing plenty of roads during that time), most turtles perish long before bearing offspring. While a single 50 year old female could easily lay over 100 eggs, it's likely that only 1 or 2 will survive to reproduce themselves.

Nathan Weaver of Clemson University understood the pressures turtles face, and in 2012 decided to put together a project to help figure out the best ways to assist their crossing the roads. His study bore a very different and unexpected discovery, one that reveled the dark souls of some humans. Weaver placed realistic-looking rubber turtles in the middle of a road lane near campus and watched from nearby. Over the course of an hour, seven drivers (out of 267 total) intentionally moved over to hit the rubber turtle, and multiple others appeared to attempt the same only to miss.

“It was a bit surprising. I’ve heard of people and from friends who knew people that ran over turtles. But to see it out here like this was a bit shocking.” -Weaver Source

About a week later, Weaver repeated the experiment, this time in a more residential area. It was the second car of the day that swerved over the center line to smash the fake turtle.

"Wow! That didn't take long-the second one this time." -Weaver Source

Though the other cars (50 in total) to pass during the hour missed the turtle, one moved over to hit it just after the end of the observation period. As Weaver moved to collect the turtle, a driver struck it while he stood less than 20 feet away.

" One hit in 50 cars is pretty significant when you consider it might take a turtle 10 minutes to cross the road." -Weaver Source

To other seasoned researchers, the findings are unfortunately not surprising. Hal Herzog, a Western Carolina University psychology professor admitted that, even in today's more enlightened, modern world, many humans feel a need to prove they are the dominant species on the planet. Without much thought, they crush defenseless animals under the tires of two-ton vehicles.

"They aren't thinking, really. It is not something people think about. It just seems fun at the time. It is the dark side of human nature." -Herzog Source

Herzog, author of a book about humans' relationships with animals, called "Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat.", once asked a class of 110 students whether they had intentionally run over a turtle, or been in a car with someone who did. 34 raised their hands.

NASA employee Mark Rober conducted an experiment similar to Weaver's using rubber turtles, snakes and tarantulas. Watching 1,000 cars pass, Rober saw six percent of drivers went out of their way to hit the animals. The rubber animals were safely on the shoulder, not even on the road!

Weaver's professor, Rob Baldwin also reflected on the number of snakes intentionally killed by motorists. Though he wishes people didn't do such things, he says he can at least partially understand, as snakes are widely misunderstood and feared as dangerous. However, why anyone would want to run over a turtle remains a mystery to him.

"They seem so helpless and cute. I want to stop and help them. My kids want to stop and help them. My wife will stop and help turtles no matter how much traffic there is on the road. I can't understand the idea why you would swerve to hit something so helpless as a turtle." -Baldwin Source

Researchers have been studying different methods of allowing animals to safely cross roads, but they may need to reconsider their methods. All the infrastructure to protect these animals is meaningless if people continue going out of their way to intentionally do them harm. Education is key here; people need to understand just how destructive this hobby is to turtle populations, and that they already require our assistance without the added pressure of the "sport". Weaver and other scientists are hoping to open the public's eye to these dark deeds, and hopefully begin changing public attitude to the benefit of these animals.

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