{"id":8946,"date":"2014-01-11T16:00:27","date_gmt":"2014-01-11T21:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/creative.clemson.edu\/clemsonworld\/?p=8946"},"modified":"2014-01-11T16:00:27","modified_gmt":"2014-01-11T21:00:27","slug":"terrapin-cross-runway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/terrapin-cross-runway\/","title":{"rendered":"Why does the terrapin cross the runway?"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Laura Francoeur and her team balance wildlife protection and air safety.<\/h3>\n

To rescue a turtle on a roadway is one thing.
\nTo rescue a turtle on a runway is quite another.
\nLook left. Look right. Look UP.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is the mission on a New York afternoon, as the Diamondback terrapins poke their heads from their telltale geometrically patterned shells, plodding to cross the JFK International Airport runway jutting into Jamaica Bay.
\nThe wildlife patrol team plucks them from danger and tucks hatchlings into a see-through plastic bag while adults go into the back of patrol pickups, the first step in relocating them to safety.
\nThe loudspeaker atop a yellow-striped, white patrol SUV babbles airport tower chatter until, clear as a bell, comes \u201cFour Left\u201d \u2014 the two words you were warned about.
\n\u201cGo, now,\u201d commands Laura Francoeur. \u201cOff the runway.\u201d
\nWe hightail it to the safety of the crew-cut coarse grass apron. The twin turbine engines roar as the jetliner whooshes by no more than 10 yards away, leaving you feeling out of scale on this landscape, oddly like some small animal beside a highway.
\nAwed by the din, I look at Francoeur, who smiles, then quips, \u201cIt\u2019s just another day at work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Managing wildlife and protecting the public<\/h3>\n

Clemson alumna Laura Francoeur is chief wildlife biologist for New York\u2019s John F. Kennedy International Airport, \u201cGateway to the World.\u201d
\nBut today, the world will have to wait, while Francoeur picks up Diamondback terrapins following their instincts.
\n[pullquote align=’right’ font=’oswald’ color=’#3A4958′]In 2012 more than 1,300 terrapins were picked up by runway patrols during summer nesting season. The critters became media darlings, even getting their own Twitter handle #JFKturtles.[\/pullquote] \u201cI did a Google search once for JFK and turtles and there were more than 900,000 hits,\u201d Francoeur says.
\nTo the public and media, Francoeur and wildlife patrol staffers are saving turtles. Actually they are protecting the airport by managing a wildlife problem. While the terrapins pose little hazard to the planes, they do cause a big headache for airport operations.
\n\u201cPilots on the taxiways will see a terrapin or a bunch of them, and will hold their positions and radio the tower to have someone from operations come out to pick them up,\u201d Francoeur says. \u201cDuring nesting season in the early summer, sometimes there are dozens of terrapins in the way. Delays are usually no more than 10 minutes, but they have gone on for nearly an hour.\u201d
\nWhy does the terrapin cross the runway? To get to the other side.
\n

\"Terrapin<\/a>

Terrapin crossing the runway.<\/p><\/div>
\nRunway 4L juts 400 feet into Jamaica Bay. On one side the terrapins live their lives and mate. On the other, females dig nests to lay their eggs. The biologists have had to figure ways to block the terrapins. Existing fences did not stop the turtles, which would look for gaps to slip under or trudge to the end and go around. The best solution so far is corrugated plastic pipe laid on the ground. The airport has installed more than 4,000 feet of it. \u201cThey can\u2019t get a grip and slide back, and the pipe is staying on the ground,\u201d Francoeur says. \u201cThe terrapins finally give up and lay their eggs outside the fence.\u201d
\nFrancoeur presented the JFK terrapin work during the 15th Wildlife Damage Management Conference held at Clemson last March. She had time to catch up with friends and colleagues, including her graduate program adviser, wildlife professor Greg Yarrow.
\nWildlife-damage management, regardless of the problem species, has four basic components, according to Yarrow, now a division chair in the School of Agricultural, Forest and Environmental Sciences. It\u2019s problem-solving that follows a process: You define the problem by identifying and assessing the damage. Next, study the behavior and ecology of the problem species. Then choose and apply controls, and finally evaluate the results.
\nYarrow remembers Francoeur, who graduated in 1995 with a master\u2019s in wildlife biology, and her thesis about deer damage to soybean fields.
\nNicknamed \u201cSpike\u201d for her short-cropped gel-spiked blond hair, Francoeur was one of \u201cthe graduate students we had then who went all out all the time,\u201d Yarrow says. \u201cThey were a group of great graduate students that put Clemson wildlife biology on the map.\u201d
\n\u201cWildlife management was the right fit for me,\u201d Francoeur says.<\/p>\n

Arbitrating the conflicts of nature and development<\/h3>\n

Wildlife and airplanes have needed managing since the beginning of flight. Orville Wright wrote in his diary about a 1910 run-in with birds. In 2012, approximately 10,900 wildlife strikes to U.S. civilian aircraft were reported. Since 1988, more than 250 people have died because of wildlife strikes worldwide, according to the U.S. Bird Strike Committee. Damage to nonmilitary U.S. aircraft from wildlife strikes costs about $700 million a year.
\n\n\t\t