C.S.I. = Can See It

Like several other deer around here, this one got hit by a car just before hunting season opened in November and lay dead on the road shoulder about 200 feet down the highway. This past season Franklin County, just inches to our west (I can throw a stone over the county line), had the biggest deer harvest in the state of Missouri: more than 4,000. Sorry, Bambi fans: The herd needed thinning. Worse than seeing a deer in the road shoulder is seeing half a deer.  That's to say nothing of the people in the car. Before you get all Awww about deer hunting, imagine your own car hitting a deer that rolls at 50 mph through your windshield onto you and your passengers.

Three, four, five days and I began to wonder: Who picks up the roadkill in Missouri?

Within a city's limits: Animal Control. (Hey, all of you who love to work with animals. . .)
On a county road: Missouri Department of Conservation, and don't call about anything smaller than a deer because they believe in nature taking care of its own.
On a state road: Missouri Department of Transportation.

They do it on call, but I didn't know that then. When scavenger birds picked at the carcass I looked the other way. Then I got all involved in whatnot and left town for a week. Came back and catching up on work barely left the Divine Cabin for a week to ten days. Then going for a walk I see this. Looks like a young deer (they're the most fearless and ignorant) who was broadsided.

Cats Do Not Belong Outside

All I wanted was a short walk and I had to step over this and think about its life and death, its owners who must have loved, admired, fed, and held it and are probably now wondering when their pet will come back to its fine warm safe indoor home, just right for a domesticated animal. They let their cat out so it could walk on the wild side, chase a few mice, kill a few birds, get some exercise; or perhaps they weren't watching and it escaped, wanting adventure instead of lazing around the house looking elegant. Its cream-colored tail lay about 12 feet away. Please keep cats indoors; letting them roam is the same as killing them. A few feral cats live around here, and while they might survive for a season they all meet the same fate; I know that because I walk these roads. Letting your dogs run loose isn't a good idea either.

Meet Wendy, the Turtle Saver

This area's wildlife includes box turtles and painted turtles, and in seeking territories they cross the roads without looking. This Jeep wagon's back window had spelled out on it "I Rescue Turtles," and its owner happened by. Wendy loves all animals, but she is the turtle-rescuing squad around here. She will pick up turtles with cracked shells, who have been run over by cars, and take them to the animal hospital where she says the shells can often be fixed and the turtles made well again. That was news to me. She will stop and get a turtle out of the road or turn it around if it's headed for danger. She has 15 acres, room to bring turtles home and feed them melon rinds and corn on the cob until they're ready for the wild again. She said her mother raised turtles on Long Island, but what made her a turtle rescuer here in Missouri was witnessing a driver deliberately swerving his truck to crush a turtle that was in the road shoulder. (I myself have heard a crass person say about turtles, "I like to hear 'em pop.") She furiously followed the driver, pulled alongside and gave him the finger. "I don't do things like that," she said, "but I was so mad."

God bless Wendy the turtle savior! She is the answer to all turtle prayers.

Wounded

Walking on steep Timberstone Trail I saw a yellow item in the road. It was a turtle, about six inches long, on its back, squirming but unable to turn over. As I approached it pulled itself inward, scared. I saw the wound to its plastron. I turned it over. Scarlet blood flowed from a deep crack in its shell; it had been run over but not killed. I took a photo too sickening to show you, and deleted it. I lifted the turtle from the asphalt and placed it among some roadside plants. Thought it might prefer to die there instead of in the hot August road. Hope I didn't hurt it worse. Felt very bad that there wasn't any hope for its survival.

This is not the usual Three-Toed Box Turtle one sees around here; this turtle unquestionably has four toes. It does not have the brown streaks on its plastron which would firmly identify it as an Ornate Box Turtle, Terrapene ornata ornata, but in Missouri it must be either one or the other, and it is probably an Ornate. Its normal lifespan is 32 to 37 years. Every summer I see a couple of dozen turtle bodies, all sizes, littering the roads.On our narrow, steep, curving or shoulderless roads it is not always possible to swerve to avoid them. I would grieve except that I know there are many more turtles who survive in this area, where there is abundant conservation land. Whoever is responsible for that, I thank fervently.

Armadillos This Far North

Armadillos are tropical mammals (that's right, mammals!), but they've been in southern Missouri for several years, working their way up Interstate 44. Three years ago I saw an armadillo on Highway FF. Told the feed-store owner's son, and he said he'd seen one in the area also, but nobody had believed him. Finally, today, one turns up as road kill right where Highway FF meets F. I apologize for such a sad photo. It's just proof that armadillos do come right up to the northern edge of their range when they want something. (This is latitude 38 degrees 25 minutes North.) This one might well have been drinking from the creek. They need a lot of water. My 1946 Webster's unabridged dictionary states flatly, "Their flesh is good food."

To protect themselves, armadillos will roll up into an ball. But when startled by oncoming cars, they jump -- vertically -- which is almost always fatal. This one had a laceration along its back and down the side. Close-up, it's an almost Martian creature: blend of pig, tank and turtle, with an opossum's face and a rat's tail. But unfortunately, it's very slow.