Blanding turtle finds safe haven in Nebraska

Maybe he thought he was being harassed by a strange two-legged giant, who raised a big finger to count the five or six growth rings on the turtle's underbelly.

The giant pointed to the turtle's bright yellow throat and mouth, always curled upward in a permanent grin.

In Nebraska it is designated a Tier I species, the state's highest protection, meaning it is illegal to handle them or take them from the wild without a special permit.

With an estimated more than 100,000 turtles calling the area home, there are 10 times more Blanding's turtles living here than there are anywhere else combined.

In other places, humans have destroyed or fragmented much of the turtles' habitat, often killing them on roadways.

With its friendly face and striking color pattern, the turtle is easily recognizable.

The wetlands and the hills are all pretty much undisturbed, so they basically have all their requirements for life available in a pretty unaltered state.

[...] even then, females produce relatively few eggs and mortality for the newborn turtles that are about the size of a quarter are high.

[...] more than a decade ago, as construction crews prepared to widen a stretch of highway passing through the Valentine wildlife refuge authorities were forced to consider the Blanding's turtle.

Minutes tick by in silence on the shoulder of U.S. Highway 83, until the distant rumble of a semi-truck grows into a thundering woosh.

The roads department brought in specialist Jeffery Lang, then a professor at the University of North Dakota, to survey the turtle population and suggest how best to accommodate it.

[...] the fence funnels the turtles into partially submerged culverts, allowing the waterborne creatures to swim underneath.

Research shows it takes a very small number of adult Blanding's turtle deaths to have a negative impact on the whole population.

[...] Bartels said, it belongs here.