Rose Valley residents have long been mindful of the turtles that migrate across Westlake Road on their way to breeding grounds mapped out in their DNA.
In recent years, however, their efforts to keep the creatures safe have been challenged.
West Kelowna’s burgeoning population has made the roadway much busier with both industrial and residential traffic, and not all who have traveled the route have made the effort to slow down.
The nearby veterinarian office and a number of area residents have posted countless pictures online explaining the damage wrought when a car drives over one of the little creatures.
Last year, the City of West Kelowna, upon the urging of local residents, did what they could to inform people of the turtles’ presence, putting up big speed reader boards asking motorists to slow down and more reminding them of their migratory times.
That signage will likely be rolled out again in the days ahead and some road painting is also expected. This year, however, some extra work has been done that city staff hope will make that less important.
“In 2020, we hired a consultant to do a review of the issue with the turtles migrating, and essentially, they spent approximately June to October in 2022 observing the wildlife movements in that area,” Allen Fillion with the City of West Kelowna said.
“We actually installed cameras so we could monitor.”
The cameras essentially showed city staff that turtle tunnels built when the road was rebuilt in 2013/2014 were not being used.
Fillion said other wildlife had made good use of the car-free path, some of which may have been turtle predators. The turtles themselves, however, steered clear.
So in 2021, the city put in a budget request to receive some funds so that improvements could be made to those tunnels.
“Before we got into the winter, we were able to do some upgrades to some of the fencings in the area to try to keep the turtles off the road and point them towards the tunnels,” he said.
But the majority of the work in the area was done in the spring.
That work included putting down a layer of gravel on the bottom of the tunnels so the turtles feel comfortable with using it and it’s easy to access for them.
Fillion said there was also a lot of fencing work to point the creatures towards those tunnels.
“Really, we’re just asking them to pay attention and slow down on that section,” Fillion said.
“Hopefully we can have more success in keeping them off the road in the first place. But if they are on the road, hopefully, people can just slow down to there and drive with caution.”
According to the Ministry of Environment, the painted turtle requires wetlands, ponds or similar small bodies of water for hiding and foraging, adjacent to upland areas with dry, light-textured soils for nesting.
“Unfortunately, within its limited British Columbia range, the Painted Turtle is threatened by alteration or destruction of this important habitat,” the government website said.
“Wetlands and ponds are drained, filled and modified to meet human needs. Landowners can assist the continued survival of British Columbia’s only native freshwater turtle by taking care to avoid disturbing turtles and protecting known breeding locations on their property.”
Up to 90 per cent of all turtle nests are lost to predators. Of those that make it out of the nest, only one in five will survive to adulthood.
If they do survive, painted turtle can live 20 to 30 years and grow to be the size of dinner plates. They are the most northerly occurring and most widespread turtles in North America, and young turtles hatch in the fall and endure winter temperatures well below freezing before they leave the nest in late spring or early summer.
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