MANITOWANING—A spokesperson for the Friends of Manitoulin Turtles (FMT) group says local residents should not be discouraged that the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) and a team of biologists don’t feel that there is enough turtle activity on two areas of highways in Assiginack township to warrant signage alerting drivers of turtles crossing.
“People should not be discouraged,” a spokesperson for FMT (who wished to remain anonymous) told The Expositor last Friday. “The MTO has a lot more hurdles to go through to get this type of action taken than municipalities. There is a turtle crossing sign on Highway 540 at Ice Lake.”
The spokesperson said, “our ad hoc group is collecting documentation as the whole Island for turtles. We are starting to collect information where turtles have been seen and will continue to collect information and are asking for the public’s assistance on this.”
“We will collect information on dates, the observer’s name and places that they have seen turtles,” said the FMT spokesperson. She pointed out the Friends group started earlier this year, “and we are asking for members of the public, locals and visitors to the Island to email us their sightings of turtles and locations. For instance, if a turtle is seen 600 metres south of High Falls. And we would like this information in relation to any road on Manitoulin Island.”
“We know the cost of signage is very high, and we may in the future fundraise for this,” said the FMT spokesperson. “But our first step is to have people send us an email with information on where turtles have been seen, date they were seen and the observers name to islandturtles@yahoo.com.”
As was reported in last week’s edition of The Expositor, at the urging of at least one Assiginack resident and township councillor Jennifer Hooper, the MTO said it would conduct a site visit to review the locations where turtles are dangerously crossing the highway (and in some cases getting run over by passing vehicles) to see if some kind of public notification can be put in place.
Councillor Hooper said the local resident had indicated two locations where turtles are crossing the highway, one is right before Highway 6 and the rock cut just past Manitowaning Mill and at Ivy Lane to Queen Street.
Councillor Hooper said last Thursday evening, “as promised, the MTO representative and a team of biologists came today to do an assessment of the areas of concern. They have very strict criteria they have to follow, for many reasons. Unfortunately, they did not find enough indicators of turtle activity to warrant signage. They did, however, direct me to an app called “inaturalist” which enables the average person to connect with an online discussion group for identification and tracking of all forms of wildlife. In this way, we can keep track of turtle activity. If we discover endangered turtles, such as Blandings, are using the area to cross, that may call for further action on their part.”
The FMT spokesperson said, “we are always looking for more members to join our group, and they can indicate this by contacting us on our email.”
