An LSU employee who sometimes walks around the LSU Lakes on her lunch breaks began seeing something unexpected on nearby Stanford Avenue this past May.
And it was heartbreaking.
Turtles, lots of turtles, had been struck by cars as they attempted to cross the four-lane road.
"It was so hard to see all the turtles," said Libby Haydel. "I counted 28 at one time."
The stretch of road where the turtles had tried to cross spanned from the sidewalk that begins at the Milford Wampold Memorial BREC Park to South Stadium Drive.
Haydel decided to place a call to BREC, the city's parks and recreation department.
Within days, BREC workers had a solution, installing a roughly 2-foot high, 400-foot long fence of landscape fabric along Stanford near the lake to "create a barrier to keep the turtles from crossing the busiest part of the street and direct them to grassier areas near the lake, so they don't have to cross the street," said Lydia Nichols-Russell, natural resources manager for BREC.
BREC has put up a fabric fence between LSU Lake and Stanford Avenue to protect turtles from trying to cross the street to find a place to lay their eggs.
"The turtle nesting season is from April to July," she said. "They will start to move out of the water to higher ground to dig holes in the ground and lay their eggs."
It's called the season of turtle dispersal. The baby turtles hatch within 50 to 60 days, Nichols-Russell said.
The fence is called a "drift fence," a long, continuous fence that helps control the movements of animals in an open area. Since it went up, no more turtles have met their end on Stanford Avenue, she said. BREC plans to leave the fence through the end of July.
The agency would probably consider switching materials as they watch the area next year, Nichols-Russell. The landscape fabric was something they had on hand and could be used quickly, stapled to wooden stakes.
Haydel was able to go out on her lunch hour to help the BREC workers put up the fence, she said.
"It was so great to actually be able to be out there and physically help prevent more turtle deaths," she said. "BREC responded so swiftly."
Nichols-Russell said that anyone who has concerns about wildlife in East Baton Rouge Parish can email conservation@brec.org.
"People should be aware this time of year when they're driving by bodies of water," Nichols-Russell said.