Driving a car shields vehicle occupants from the visceral experience of death and destruction they wreak.
Maybe that sounds hyperbolic, but let me tell you: I'll bet you didn't even see the animal you ran over.
It's different when you are on foot, or in my case, on a bike, the results are all too - graphically - apparent.
There's the dead body, protective shell crushed, guts exposed, the smear of blood like a crime scene, telling a story of a violent end of life.
On my short journey between McMaster and the Urquhart Butterfly Garden I encountered 2 dead turtles crushed on Olympic Drive, and one snake, splattered at McMaster parking access.
If you missed it, I've got the photographic evidence here for you.
It's no secret that Cootes and Olympic Drive, and McMaster parking, are all built in and through a biodiverse area, much of which is protected as a nature sanctuary.
The presence of vehicles slicing through the middle of the natural area brings results like this daily.
Cars and trucks are incompatible with a nature sanctuary. These at-risk reptiles need to be protected (that's what we want from a sanctuary, after all) not left to share the road with traffic. We know how that plays out: extirpation, extinction.
How about a choice: Will you alter your route, if not your means of transportation, to avoid contributing to this ongoing daily death toll?
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