Road to glory: The eastern box turtle’s path to state symbol status

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the most biodiverse places in the world, so it’s no surprise that many of the plants and animals chosen as symbols of the two states it straddles—North Carolina and Tennessee—are found within its boundary.

Mockingbirds and cardinals, fireflies and dogwoods, opossums and passionflowers have all found a place of honor in state statutes over the years, as have raccoons, tulip poplars, zebra swallowtail butterflies, Southern Appalachian brook trout, gray squirrels, and marbled salamanders. But only one species has earned the honor of symbolhood in both states: the eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina).

“They’re survivors,” said JJ Apodaca, executive director of the Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy, a nationwide nonprofit that supports amphibian and reptile conservation in the US. “They’re adapted to this landscape, and they represent holding on and surviving. They’re an astounding symbol of the awe that the natural world can bring us. That’s why so many people come to the Smokies—and what an amazing mascot of that.”

Eastern box turtles, including the widespread woodland box turtle subspecies (Terrapene carolina carolina) that occurs in the Smokies, are the picture of adaptability and endurance. They can eat just about anything—grass, fruit, mushrooms, salamanders, eggs, and even carrion all make it onto the box turtle’s menu—and tolerate a wide range of temperatures. Their range covers most of the eastern United States, from the dry grasslands of Texas to the swampy humidity of Florida and all the way north to Maine and the Great Lakes. In hot weather, they stay cool under logs, mud, or leaves; in cold weather, they find an insulated place to rest in a hibernation-like state, slowing their metabolism to nearly nothing as they await the return of warmer weather.

Perhaps the most obviously fascinating feature of the box turtle is its shell, one of the most advanced pieces of armor any animal has ever worn. The turtle can close the hard top and bottom pieces together, affording it near-complete protection from predators once it draws its appendages inside. But it’s what happens after the shell opens that first earned legislators’ interest back in 1979, when North Carolina became the first state to make the eastern box turtle its mascot.

“In order for a turtle to make progress, he must stick his neck out,” Rep. Chris Barker, a Democrat from the coastal region in Craven County and the box turtle’s most stalwart proponent at the time, was quoted as saying in multiple newspapers in 1979. “I think state officials and the General Assembly should emulate this.”

In this manner, Barker led by example. As reported by the Asheville Citizen-Times, Barker “often wore his woolen turtle embroidered vest and turtle pins and carried two pet-rock turtles to prove the seriousness of his efforts.” To encourage his colleagues in the Senate Wildlife Committee to move the bill forward, however, he enlisted the help of Sid Mitchell, a 12-year-old boy and aspiring herpetologist from Cary. Mitchell brought in two of his seven pet eastern box turtles to show the committee, to which he “explained the difference between the male and female and talked about some of his other turtles.”

“The senators apparently were impressed with the evidence they saw,” the Citizen-Times reported. “There was little discussion and not much of the ribbing Barker endured when the House committee acted on the bill.”

The measure’s most vocal opponent was Sen. Cecil R. Jenkins Jr., a Democrat from Cabarrus County, the sole senator to vote no. The turtle “is not a progressive animal,” Jenkins opined, as quoted in the Winston-Salem Journal—North Carolina should not be represented by “something that sticks its head in a shell.”

But eastern box turtle supporters prevailed, and on March 19, 1979, the General Assembly read and ratified the whimsically worded document declaring the turtle North Carolina’s official state reptile, describing it as “a most fascinating creature” that “serves to control harmful and pestiferous insects and acts as one of nature’s clean-up crew.” Though “the turtle is derided by some who have missed the finer things of life,” the act continues, it “watches undisturbed as countless generations of faster hares run by to quick oblivion, and is thus a model of patience for mankind and a symbol of this State’s unrelenting pursuit of great and lofty goals.”

One and a half decades later, Tennessee followed North Carolina’s example. The bill, which also sought to designate the Tennessee cave salamander as state amphibian, was introduced by Rep. Robert Patton, a Republican from Johnson City.

“[Patton] carried a box turtle in a glass jar onto the House floor to make his presentation,” reports a March 24, 1995, issue of The Tennessean. “The turtle wasn’t swimming. In fact, it was deceased. The bill passed anyway.”

Perhaps Patton’s plea was rendered more persuasive by the support of Heather Michelle Harrison, an 11-year-old girl from Hendersonville, just north of Nashville, who Patton described in an Associated Press article published by the Elizabethton Star as “a real turtle lover.” Harrison collected 200 signatures in favor of the measure and asked her parents to drive her to to the capitol building so she could watch the House debate.

The measure sailed through the House 83-3 on March 23 and passed the Senate on May 18 with only two opposing votes. One of them came from Sen. Bob Rochelle, a Democrat from Lebanon, who complained that constituents would view debate on such matters as “wasted time.” In response, Sen. Bud Gilbert, a Republican from Knoxville, “suggested Rochelle was ‘disturbed because he’s getting ready to lose his position as state reptile,’” the Knoxville News-Sentinel reported.

Now, the eastern box turtle is celebrating 30 years as the most highly honored reptile in the Great Smoky Mountains—merely a blip on the radar for some of these magnificent creatures. Though they typically live for 25-35 years, eastern box turtles have been known to reach over 100 years old, with females remaining capable of reproduction into their 90s.

“It’s pretty wild that you can come across a box turtle that was on the landscape when we were harvesting trees from the area to try to win World War Two,” Apodaca said. “A box turtle could have seen that.”

Such a long-lived individual would have seen many changes over the years that have often made life harder for box turtles and other wildlife species.

“This is a species that has historically been thought of as one of the most abundant turtles, but right now we’re extremely concerned about them as a whole, across their entire range,” Apodaca said.

Habitat loss is a huge challenge. As more land is developed, there are fewer places for eastern box turtles to live, and their natural movements are restricted by human-made obstacles like buildings and retaining walls. Road construction, higher speed limits, and growing traffic counts are also a problem; eastern box turtles need five to ten years to reach sexual maturity, with females typically laying only about four or five eggs each year, so populations don’t recover quickly if damaged. Eastern box turtles are also the most-poached turtle in the United States, with unscrupulous collectors nabbing them for sale as pets. Adding to the issue is the rise of mid-level predators like skunks and racoons, which often thrive in residential areas due to easy access to human garbage. They also enjoy eating box turtles.

Though eastern box turtles continue to face many challenges, Apodaca said, “we’ve seen a lot more effort in the last decade or so” to conserve them.

If denizens of the Great Smoky Mountains pull together to give their official reptilian symbol its due, perhaps the eastern box turtle will, as North Carolina’s enabling legislation states, continue to “watch undisturbed” as the wider world passes it by, munching its placid, unhurried way through Southern Appalachian forests.

You don’t have to be a wildlife professional to help box turtles. When mowing, leave the grass higher during the spring and fall to avoid accidentally killing or injuring a turtle hiding in the brush. Drive the speed limit and pay attention to the road, especially during spring and fall. If you see a turtle and can safely stop to help it cross, always move it in the direction it was already heading. Support organizations like Safe Passage that work to keep turtles and other animals safe when they encounter a human highway.