Posted on 12/30/2012 9:17:31 AM PST by ZULU
CLEMSON, S.C. — Clemson University student Nathan Weaver just wanted to put together a project to help figure out the best way to assist turtles in crossing the road. But he also ended up with a peek into the dark souls of some human beings.
Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/12/27/4507782/clemson-students-turtle-project.html#storylink=cpy
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldonline.com ...
Last fall there was a large land turtle crossing the County Road between Montpelier and our house. The car ahead of me stopped, and we waited for it to finish crossing. My wife and two of my children told me later that day that they also encountered the turtle crossing the road. Apparently, it went back and forth across the road all day, maybe hauling back food for its winter store or something.
Anyway, everybody stopped for it. No squashed turtle.
If we can do it safely, so do we. Last Summer, my husband tried to assist a Maryland Terrapin across the road. I am telling you this turtle was the meanest thing! Hissed, snapped and just raised quite the ruckus. When my husband finally got it into some tall grass (a marsh), the turtle turned around, hissed one more time and went on his merry way. No wonder U of Md has it as a mascot... they are quite attitudinal. LOL!
I do also if the traffic permits it. This is another example of power or actually perceived power. People are feeling more and more powerless in their daily lives and killing a small creature shows the animal who is boss. It’s not just turtles either. How can someone run over a raccoon or opossum in a 25 or 30 mile speed zone? I can understand on a major highway but in residential communities there is no excuse for not steering around it.
even in today's more enlightened, modern world, sometimes humans feel a need to prove they are the dominant species on this planet
I can't believe this is allegedly an AP news story and not an editorial the way it is written.
I drive like they are democrats headed across the road for 0bama phones and free birth control.
I’ve pulled off the road to move turtles. I don’t understand how anyone could deliberately want to hit something. I had a bird once fly in front of my car window, hit the front and plop dead on the hood. I pulled off the road, saw the little guy was a goner and cried. Took about ten minutes before I was ok enough to get back in the car and drive home.
I like the comment with the idea of making foam rubber turtle replicas with big metal spikes in them and positioning them so a driver has to go out of the way to hit them.
why would anyone be surprised by this...if we can murder millions of innocent babies why wouldn’t we try to mow down turtles?
seriously lets get our priorities straight here... while we should treat all of God’s creatures humanely our thoughts should first be on how we treat our fellow man.
I completely agree. And for the record, I have never hit a turtle. I have unintentionally hit a few animals, squirrels and deer mostly; even though I was going less than 30 mph in some instances.
Last summer I was driving out to our farm with my nephew following with his two small sons to go fishing. I hit a squirrel. I mean it went flying. I later asked my nephew whether his sons had seen it and fortunately they had not. One of my sons has a bumper sticker that reads, “Squirrels, nature’s little speed bumps.” But he’s a kind soul and would never intentionally harm an animal. One other story regarding turtles, always take them across in the direction they are going or they will simply turn around and cross the road again. And yes, snappers which in Kansas can grow to ten or twelve pounds, are mean critters and can take off your finger.
Wouldn’t a hard shell animal damage the car/paint? Doesn’t make sense.
Sounds like a case for government intervention. /s
Repulsive.
I go out of my way to steer my car at crows feeding on roadkill, but it mostly a form of mutual amusement...I know I am never going to hit the crow, and the crow knows he is never going to let himself get hit.
He contemptuously hops out of the way, and by the time the roadkill appears in my rearview mirror again, his beak is buried deep.
I avoid hitting anything as long as I can do it safely without causing a traffic issue.
Are you hard of reading? It is attributed to a comment by a professor.
I hope that student realizes that if someone had an accident because of her stunt, and was injured, she’d be facing a FELONY charge.
Can you not see the paragraph break between two separate comments?
Kansas snappers can be every bit of 20+ lbs and 18 inch wide shells. I know I moved one out of an intersection in my folks neighborhood with a scoop shovel. It was in the middle of the intersection turning itself to watch cars go by and there were quite a few motorists trying to get it to crawl away which it had no intention of doing. I tell you this thing was a monster and didnt appreciate my efforts to move it with the shovel.
I feel I am accumulating good luck or good karma doing it ....so I will always help the turtle across the road. Some tribes called it Turtle Island, where we live
It’s pretty weird that some people feel the need to run over small animals.
My rule is pretty simply. Any animal other than a squirrel I will try to avoid hitting them. I will not put my self in danger trying to avoid them.
Squirrels on the other hand do not get the courtesy of me trying to avoid them. I will not try to run them over, but will not try to avoid them either.
The reason being I once tried to avoid a squirrel and wound up rolling a pick up truck. Yes, all squirrels must pay for the mistake of one squirrel.
There's a large park across the street from my house, many oak trees and many squirrels, they frequently cross the street to my yard because I have two walnut trees. I don't care, they can have all the walnuts they want but I've observed them many times, dart out into the street, regardless of whether a car is coming or not and stop dead in their tracks in the path of an oncoming vehicle, vehicle swerves to avoid them but at the same time said squirrel decides to move on, resulting frequently in a smashed squirrel.
It happened to me with a cat, I swerved to avoid him and instead ran over him, it wasn't intentional, animals are unpredictable is all.
Yep, there are people who needlessly take life. There are probably way more who run over animals because they are inconvenient, they slow them down and make them late and make them use more gas. It’s sort of like the difference between the nut job in Connecticut and people who are for abortion.
How about you put an IED in the turtle so when a driver steers to squash him he gets a wheel blown off.
Were you in a Geico commercial?
http://news.yahoo.com/college-students-turtle-project-takes-dark-twist-182457207.html
10000 comments at yahoo news for this story. Most I have ever seen
Some people really ARE a one act show!
I can’t believe you really believe that
No. The barf alert should be for idiot responses like yours and the next one
Around here, if traffic is light enough, roadkill gets moved out of the roadway. Most residents here wear boots—not open toed shoes!
Not bad but I think the spike is simpler, cheaper and only the sociopath gets hurt
Good point. Believe it or not rabbit bones can pierce a car radiator if you hit one in a low car at high speed and it bounces. The odds go up if you hit 20 or 30 of them over the course of a long night's drive. It actually happened to me long ago. Fortunately it was a cool evening and I didn't even notice the damage until after I got home the next day.
No, was there a Geico commercial about this?
I ended up on some guy’s front lawn while swerving for a squirrel. Chased the damn thing across two more lawns before I finally got him........
If you don’t run over them the get into the sewers and mutate into teenage ninjas.
hmmm..... are you really trying to say that perseverating over why people feel the need to squash turtles trumps defending the unborn?
if more people cared about human babies instead of reptiles perhaps our nation would be better off
I will use any opportunity to defend the defenseless. If that makes me “a one act show” than so be it.
Since it was coming from a wooded area, I suspect it had just laid eggs and was heading back....
There are threads for babies and the occasional thread for turtles........THIS one is for turtles....
If you were to reread my initial post it was indeed relevant to the discussion of turtles, let me expound upon my initial point. In the natural order of things human beings are more complex organisms than our reptilian friends. As a species if we are capable of culling our own then why would we be surprised when we show disregard for a creature that is clearly inferior to ourselves. This is a commentary on human nature and is relevant to the point of the article which addresses “human beings darker nature.”
Roads are for automobiles. It’s up to everything and everybody else using the roads to adapt.
Turtlle soup
Ingredients:
2 pounds boneless turtle meat
3 cups water
1 medium onion, quartered
1 stalk celery, coarsely chopped
½ large bell pepper, coarsely chopped
2 bay leaves
⅛ teaspoon cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped onion
½ cup chopped bell pepper
½ cup chopped celery
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
5 cups reserved turtle stock
½ cup red wine
¼ cup dry sherry
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon hot sauce
¼ teaspoon cracked black pepper
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoon flour
¼ cup minced parsley
¼ cup minced green onions
2 boiled eggs, peeled & chopped
4 tablespoon dry sherry
Directions:
Combine turtle meat, water, quartered onion, celery, bell pepper, 2 bay leaves, ⅛ teaspoon cracked black pepper, and 1 teaspoon minced garlic in a 4-quart pot. Bring to boil, lower fire to medium and simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Drain stock through mesh strainer, reserving stock in bowl. Allow meat to cool, then separate from rest of ingredients discarding everything but the turtle meat. Coarse chop the meat and set aside.
Heat butter in pot, add onions, celery, bell pepper and garlic. Sauté for 10 minutes over medium fire. Add thyme, tomato paste, and diced tomatoes and continue to cook until water from tomatoes evaporates.
Add tomato sauce, 5 cups reserved turtle stock, red wine, sherry, salt, hot sauce, cracked pepper, bay leaves and Worcestershire sauce. Cover pot and simmer for 30 minutes over medium fire.
In small sauté pan heat butter until melted over medium-low fire. Place melted butter in a bowl and stir in flour until completely blended. Whisk butter-flour roux into soup and allow soup to simmer for 1 minute until blended and soup thickens slightly.
Add turtle meat, cover pot and cook for additional 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Mince boiled eggs and set aside. Stir parsley and green onions into turtle soup.
Divide turtle soup between 4 bowls and top each with minced egg and 1 tablespoon dry sherry.
mmm...
Most roads are covered under common law ‘right-of-way’, which predates the automobile. That’s one reason why interstates are a ‘national defense’ program, so that non-motorized traffic can be kept off, which couldn’t be done otherwise.
Whatever keeps non-motorized traffic off the roads is fine with me.
Sometimes those critters change direction while you’re trying to steer around them, and they end up running right under the wheel.
Thanks. I love snapper stew. But there is a big difference between harvesting an animal for food and gratuitously,needlessly and brutally snuffing out a life
Never let an “accident” go to waste!
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