I’m working on a story about roadkill for a weekly paper in Indianapolis. It’s my first assignment for them and I want to do a good job. As part of my research for the story, I’ve learned there are infrastructures built into the roads in Florida that help divert wildlife from the highways.
Luckily, spring break is coming up and my husband, a high school math teacher, agrees we can take off. The plan is to spend a few days in Hilton Head, SC, then make our way down to Florida to see the structures designed to prevent the carnage in “hotspots”—areas where there is an abundance of roadkill. Rick’s oldest daughter, Carmen, lives in Jacksonville and we will visit her, too. Yakob and Ayalkbet are excited about the prospect of seeing both the ocean and their sister.
I need photographs for my story, so as we travel we make occasional stops so Rick can take pictures of roadkill. He snaps one of a medium-sized raccoon in Kentucky. “That was bad,” he reports as we pull away from the scene. “It had a rib sticking up through its belly.”
“Was it ooh, Pop?” asks Yakob.
“Ooh” is a word Yakob uses to describe anything gross.
“It was a raccoon that got hit. It tried to cross the road, probably at night,” says Rick.
“Why?” asks Ayalkbet.
“Probably looking for food,” Rick explains.
I recall reading somewhere that raccoons are curious about headlights. We had a tame, orphaned baby raccoon named Rascal when I was a kid. My mom liked giving him rides on the tractor, but once when she put him down he came back for more and got mangled in the blade before she could cut the engine. I don’t share that story with our sons.
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Driving down Highway 23 toward Hilton Head Island, I smell the paper mills blowing downwind from Savannah and the salt water in the marshy lagoons. I look for alligators, hoping to see a live one, but what I mostly notice are squished armadillos, their striped shells broken into fragments scattered across the road.
Hilton Head has been developed with a vision of maintaining its natural beauty. Even the McDonalds is painted in earth tones and there are no golden arches. At night, few lights are allowed on storefronts. While Yakob and Ayalkbet play in the sand at the pristinely clean beach by our hotel, I strike up a conversation with a local. Bob is a retired state trooper from Maryland. When I tell him about the story I’m working on, he shares that there is currently an overpopulation of deer on the island and a dispute between those who want to thin the herd and those who want the deer left alone.
“I don’t know what will happen, but it’s not fun when you hit a deer though. I’ve worked fatality scenes where deer have come through the windshields. You say you’re going to Florida next?”
“Yes. There’s a bear underpass near the Wekiva River basin where a lot of bears have been hit. I read a statistic recently that in 2001 alone they estimate over one hundred bears were killed on Florida roads.”
“Yeah, I know a guy in Florida who hit a small bear once.”
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A couple of days later, as we’re heading down to the Sunshine State, I note that while the speed limit along I-95 is 70mph, most people are doing 80-90 mph. The sides of the road are littered with trash, blown tires and roadkill. We cross a small body of water called Turtle Creek. Before we even get to the mouth of the bridge, I see dead turtles strewn all over the road. Soon afterward, I note a dead Pit Bull surrounded by vultures. Rick slows down and parks along the shoulder. When he returns from examining the carcass he looks especially sad. Lowering his voice so the boys can’t hear, he tells me the dog’s eyes were gone.
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There are three roadkill prevention initiatives we plan to see today before heading to Carmen’s house: the bear underpass built into the highway, a land bridge near Ocala, Florida, serving to connect two sides of a habitat that’s been split by I-75, and further north, an ecopassage that diverts amphibians and reptiles off of the highway and into underground passages.
We exit onto I-4 in search of the bear underpass. After being blown around by semis, and tailgated most of the way by vehicles with spoilers larger than the cars themselves, we are glad to get off of the interstate. A 10-foot-high chain link fence borders the road on both sides of the underpass. The road rises in the area of the structure, leaving no way to see the structure itself—unless you go into a restricted area, which we do. I worry that we may actually see a bear and keep the boys close to me. My husband snaps a few photos and we quickly get back in our van.
To get to the land bridge, we drive through the rolling pastures of the largest horse farms I’ve ever seen. The idea of the land bridge is that people can walk on it during the day and animals can use it for safe crossing at night. We park where the structure crosses over I-75. Rick turns on the hazards and gets out to take pictures. Our sons and I sit at the side of the road in our van. The boys watch Rick closely to make sure he comes back. Above me, the land bridge looks like someone put several potted plants on top of the interstate. Semis brush by at top speeds, causing the van to shake, and no one bothers to merge over to the other lane. I think to myself how ironic it would be if I became roadkill.
Our next stop is Paynes Prairie ecopassage on U.S.-441. We have just enough time to get there before the sun sets. On the way, I notice a bumper sticker that has a license plate bracket that reads, “Get in, sit down, hold on and shut up.” On the plate itself are the letters “NYPD-RTD.” Soon afterward, I see an RV with a bumper sticker that reads, “Back off or I’ll flush.”
We arrive at our destination where the cement wall runs along both sides of the road. There is a 6-inch lip at the top to divert climbing wildlife, such as snakes, alligators and turtles, and jumping wildlife such as bobcats, down into several culverts below. These openings provide safe access via underground tunnels to the other side of the road. Cars whiz by as we sit on the wall. This section of road “has more documented roadkills than any other road segment in the state,” according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
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That evening we get pulled over en route to Carmen’s house. The officer comes over to my window and says, “I’m talking to you from over here because I feel safer on this side.” He explains that he clocked Rick exceeding the speed limit by 16 miles an hour. My husband is rattled. “I can’t believe I was going that fast. After all the crazy driving I’ve seen in this state, I’m getting a ticket?”
I interrupt, hoping to distract Rick’s temper by explaining what we’re doing in Florida and how we are unfamiliar with the roads. “What happens to the roadkill around here?” I ask.
The officer replies, “All I know is that the same company in charge of picking up people’s trash used to be responsible for it. Don’t know if that’s still how it is or not. I think they take it out to the landfills.” He tilts his head in thought and adds, “I’ll tell you what, though; I’ve hit two deer in the same spot coming home from work.”
Rick is calm when the officer hands him his ticket.
In Jacksonville we get caught in construction on a bridge.
“Why are they making so much roads?” asks Ayalkbet.
“I guess for all the cars that come through here,” I say.
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On the way back home after spending the night at Carmen’s, we stop at a gas station in rural Georgia. While Rick fills the tank, I notice a stray dog hovering by the side of the building. He’s a big dog, but looks emaciated and is panting with thirst. A pick-up truck with three Pit Bulls chained to the back pulls into the parking lot. They bark at the skittish dog scrounging for food. I decide to share my Doritos with the stray, approaching him slowly at first, and then when I see he’s not going to run away, I toss a few chips down onto the asphalt. He wolfs them down and I retrieve a plastic cup of water from the van, fill it with bottled water and offer it to the dog.
The Pit Bulls keep barking. The stray dog knocks over the cup of water and drinks from the puddle it creates. Next, the animal cautiously approaches the Pit Bulls who are barking a cacophony and rattling the metal chains that bind them to the back of the truck. Scared, he scurries away toward the door of the building where other patrons take notice of him. Some stop to pet him and he seems to enjoy the attention.
When I get back in the car the boys want to know why the dogs were chained to the truck.
“Why did they have three of those kind of dogs?” asks Ayalkbet.
“I’m not sure,” I say, hoping they weren’t used for dog fighting.
Almost every time we travel, we meet at least one stray dog at a gas station, and I want to take them all home. This time Rick admits he has the same idea, but with three high-maintenance dogs already, we have no choice but to move on. As we drive away, I wonder whether the dog lives at the gas station, or if he will travel on after absorbing all of the kindness he can get. Maybe we should have taken the time to relocate the stray to a shelter. I shudder to think that since we left him to fate, he may become yet another dead animal on the side of the road.
© 2010 Colleen Wells
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Colleen Wells writes from Franklin, TN.
www.ColleenWells.net
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