04/22/2026
Spring is the season of movement for turtles. Every female snapping turtle, painted turtle, and box turtle in your region is on the move from now through early July, looking for sandy soil to dig a nest in. 🌿
This is where most of them die.
Every year, the number one cause of adult snapping turtle and painted turtle death in eastern North America is being hit by cars. A female snapping turtle is old. She may have hatched in the 1980s. She is traveling, on average, a quarter-mile from water to find the exact nest site she has been using for years. If you swerve, you save a forty-year-old life.
But if you move her from the driveway, there are two rules that matter more than anything else:
🐾 Rule 1: Move her in the direction she was walking.
Not back to the water. Not to what looks "safer." The direction she was going.
Turtles have territories. They have maps in their heads. If you put her back in the direction she came from, she will immediately turn around and cross your driveway again. If you move her in the direction she was heading, she keeps going and finishes her journey.
🐾 Rule 2: Never pick up a snapping turtle by the tail.
It dislocates her spine. You cause a serious injury doing this — the turtle will look fine walking away and die of the spinal injury over weeks.
🪴 The right way to move a snapping turtle:
- Place a car mat, a rubber floor mat, or a large piece of cardboard behind her.
- Gently, from behind, coax her onto the mat. She will hiss. That is fine.
- Drag the mat across the driveway in the direction she was heading.
- If you must lift, use both hands at the back of her shell, near the tail base, with her body hanging forward and away from you. She can bite objects eight to ten inches in front of her face — not at her sides.
🌱 For painted turtles and box turtles:
- You can pick them up gently with both hands on the sides of the shell, body held low to the ground. Still — in the direction she was heading.
- Never take her home. Never move her to "a better spot." Every turtle in North America is on its way somewhere specific, and moving her to a new place almost always ends with her dying looking for home.
The slow things crossing your driveway this spring are as old as you are.
You have ninety seconds. Don't hit her. Don't change her direction.
