While driving up the lane I stopped to move this guy off the road and into the woods (but taking the photo first). If you too 'stop for turtles' always take them to the side of the road that they were facing otherwise they simply turn around and re-enter the roadway.
The eastern box turtle is a subspecies of one of two species of box turtles
found in the United States. It is the only "land turtle" found in North
Carolina, where it is the state reptile. Box turtles are slow crawlers,
extremely long lived, slow to mature, and have relatively few offspring per
year. These characteristics, along with a propensity to get hit by cars and agricultural
machinery, make all box turtle species particularly susceptible to anthropogenic,
or human-induced, mortality.
In 2011, citing "a widespread persistent and ongoing gradual decline of
Terrapene carolina that probably exceeds 32% over three
generations", the IUCN downgraded its conservation status from Near
Threatened to Vulnerable.
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