Road ecology blog: of turtle hats and bullet holes

May 23, 2012  •  Leave a Comment

This is no ordinary turtle crossing sign! Someone went through the trouble of making the turtles little hats in different colors. Click here for another image of this wildlife warning sign. While this does represent a type of vandalism I think the action is mostly humorous and it does not encourage people to ignore the sign or any regulation. This anthropomorphism is perhaps even a bit endearing... and you are perhaps also more likely to pay attention to animals on the road that are considered cute, or made to be cute, however subjective this may be. I was thinking about these types of things because of another vandalized sign I photographed earlier that day. The other sign stated that snowmobile access was not allowed beyond the sign because of possible disturbance to the endangered woodland caribou. This time though the sign was bullet hole ridden... While this is also vandalism I think the message is entirely different from that of the turtle hats. The bullet holes suggest no respect for the regulation through an act of violence with a lethal weapon, and thus this can also be interpreted as intimidation to anyone trying to protect these last few animals or officers charged with enforcing the regulation.

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Warning sign, turtle crossing, near Creston, British Columbia, CanadaTurtle crossing warning sign, near Creston, British Columbia, Canada. Someone made the turtles different colored hats and attached them to the sign.


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