One of the things that I enjoy about biking to work is the chance to see things I would never see if I were zipping by in a climate controlled car. Like wildlife. In my daily bicycle commute to Eagan, I’ve seen wild turkeys, deer, and even a fox. Since a bicycle doesn’t make that much noise, I’ve sometimes come upon these animals without them ever having noticed me. This is a little dangerous with the deer, but thus far I haven’t run into any.
The flip side of this is that I also notice all of the roadkill on my morning ride. It’s a macabre complement to the serenity of quietly rolling along a country road. I’ve also noticed that as the weather has gotten warmer, the usual line of dead squirrels and rabbits has been added to with many turtles. I don’t know why, but I get upset by this. Probably it’s because I’m just not used to seeing turtles crushed on the road. On Thursday I came across a magnificent snapping turtle on the shoulder of the Argenta Trail who had been hit by a car. The turtle was still alive, but it was bleeding from its shell and wasn’t moving much. I wanted to help it but didn’t know what to do.
After a phone call to 911 and a conversation with a conservation officer from the DNR, I figured out that there is a place in St Paul called the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota. They’ll take a wounded animal from you and care for it until it is healed and strong enough to be released back into the wild. But here is the catch that I encountered on Thursday night: you need to bring it in yourself. This is problematic for a cyclist. I couldn’t really put a bleeding snapping turtle into my messenger bag, and no one whom I got on the phone was willing to come get it. So I biked all the way home, got in my car, and came back to pick up the turtle (about an hour later). But it was gone. I am hoping that someone else, with a car, found it and took it to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. I wish there was an organization that had a vehicle to respond to calls like mine. Cyclists probably see more injured wildlife than motorists do, but they do not have the resources to get the injured animal to a place where it can be cared for.
