Turtle Alert
Now it's turtles. They're everywhere. Mostly crossing roads. And that really, truly, upsets our daughter. Turtles, they're nice to see, a real treat. But on the road? What can they be thinking? She stops her vehicle, puts on her flashers, and runs to the rescue, picking up indignant turtles one after another, to take them to the opposite side of the road, and send them on their way. Before she then goes on her way.
But wait. Stop. What if she has taken the turtle to the same side of the road that it started out on? No wonder the turtle was indignant. Obviously, as soon as she was out of sight the turtle turned straight around and began its crossing once again - to the opposite side, the side it wanted to achieve in the first place. And then? Why ask. SPLAT!
I haven't the heart to tell her. The rescue of wild life, even from themselves, ranks high on her list of priorities. She has a mission in life. Animals. Who can fault her? They seem so blameless, just going on about their business of existence, multiplying, animalling the earth. As it should be.
So what's going on? I asked our biologist son. Mating, he said. They're busy mating, laying eggs. Ahah! I know what that's like. From a human perspective, that is. Nothing makes animals, human or otherwise quite so single-minded as sex. And the fulfillment of one's destiny: to multiply and ensure the perpetuation of the species. No wonder they're so wonderfully heedless. Our daughter to the rescue! She does her best, and curses those drivers who've left in their wake sad little crushed shells, turtles gone to turtle-heaven.
She called late last night. Not enough she has been rescuing turtles from the roadside, now they're close to home. As is to be expected, since on her acreage she has more than one wetland, but there's a sizeable, very productive one just below the dip behind her house. This turtle, evidently, was busy at the side of her driveway, adjacent to the road.
It had industriously dug its little nest and deposited no fewer than five eggs. Mission accomplished, apparently, when our daughter lifted the mother-to-be and carried it, growlingly protesting at first, then trustingly acquiescent finally, to a refuge, a safe place, the back garden sitting just above the wetland. If the turtle, misguided as it was, wanted to make another nest, another deposit, this would be the place.
Meanwhile, she hied herself back to the nest and with a shovel attempted to lift nest-and-eggs wholesale to convey them also to the place of safety. It was not to be. Before her incredulous gaze, the eggs dissolved, broke apart. She takes such misadventures very seriously, and briefly considered herself a monster. She knows the mother turtle will walk away from the nest, leaving the eggs to hatch, the baby turtles to manoeuvre themselves to safety, headed for the wetland.
Leave them alone, and they'll go home, wagging their tails behind them.
It's just the uncertainty of it all. First of all, it's a short crawl-and-a-heave for the baby turtles to access the road rather than the wetland, which would take the opposite direction and far more of an effort. Can they smell the wetland and deliberately head for it, rather than for the road? Who knows? Her kindly neighbour, the animal lover who has had ample experience with such natural events tells her to relax, let them be, they'll survive. Or not.
The world is such a complicated place.
posted by Pieface @ Friday, June 02, 2006
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