Help needed for terrapin safety on S. Jersey Roadways

[Charles & Denise]

Charles & Denise

June 26, 2004 at 4:04 pm #19909

Each and every year when we travel down to the New Jersey seashore we come to a stretch of highway called the White Horse Pike/ Rt. 30 in the vacinity where it crosses over the Intercoastal Water just north of Atlantic City. There is a cement wall dividing the 4 lane road. Each and every year there is a period in June when the Diamondbacks come up out of the bay and marsh to lay their eggs . They walk across the sandy grassy area, then onto the road and then into the cement strip. Hundreds and hundreds of these terrapins are laying on the road dead, or half squashed suffering, etc. from the busy 60 mile per hour auto traffic. Nearby Stockton State College collects the eggs from the dead terrapins and releases them after they are hatched. The Brigantine Mammal Stranding Center has been known to help some of the injured terrapins that motorists bring in after accidentally hitting them. Each year we have tried to get small fences installed along Rt. 30 on both sides of the road to keep the terrrapins from coming onto the road and getting killed. There is bay and marsh on both sides of the road so they come from both sides onto the highway. Each year in the spring , the NJ Dept. of Transportation cleans up the winter roadside debris and when the terrapins come up to lay eggs, if there were any fences at all the year before, they have either been washed away over the winter in storms or they have been taken away during the clean up. I have contacted Christie Whiteman when she was Governor of NJ and then when she headed up the EPA to try to find out how we can get a consistent program set up where these small fences are insalled in very early spring so that the terrapin slaughter can be stopped. Rt. 30 is only one of the many, many roads in this area that have this massive slaughter of terrapins in the spring. Yet no matter how many letters I write or people I talk to who say they will look into it and get it done, I see the same thing year after year. The fences are not installed consistently along the area to keep the terrapins off the busy road. I was told there was plenty of money available for these inexpensive approx. 2 foot high white chain link fences. But for some reason, whoever is put in charge of this, it must be a low priority because it is never done right. One year there might be a small stretch of fence, but not enough to keep the terrapins from just walking around it. And it will be only on the one side of the road. All it would take is one afternoon to install the fence on both sides of the road in the soft, sandy shoulder of the road in an area long enough (several miles) to do the job. If anyone has any leadership skills out there, maybe you could take up the cause and try to get this done in South New Jersey either by organizing volunteers each year to do the job with the fence provided by NJDOT or EPA. I don’t live in that area, but travel though it in the spring and summer and am always heart broken at what I see just on this one road alone. Denise

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