Althouse: "Fire Circle 5 Closed Until Further Notice/Turtle Nesting in Pit!"

June 15, 2025

"Fire Circle 5 Closed Until Further Notice/Turtle Nesting in Pit!"

This morning, in Madison.

31 comments:

Iman said...: Daddy Turtle throwin’ down!; 6/15/25, 9:12 AM
Iman said...: Looks like a turtle BBQ pit to me…; 6/15/25, 9:14 AM
Tina Trent said...: I once again hope dogs can't read.; 6/15/25, 9:18 AM
bagoh20 said...: That would never be tolerated in reverse. Imagine a pregnant woman (whatever that is) setting up camp in a turtle sanctuary.; 6/15/25, 9:23 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: The turtles don't mess with our maternity wards so a little inconvenience seems only fair.; 6/15/25, 9:24 AM
Old and slow said...: I saw this on X this morning and didn't notice that it was you who posted it!; 6/15/25, 9:38 AM
bagoh20 said...: Who chooses the nest site, the male or the female, because if it's the male, he's no Donald Trump.; 6/15/25, 9:40 AM
john mosby said...: Mmm....roast turtle...mmmmm....(salivates)

JSM; 6/15/25, 9:56 AM
Heartless Aztec said...: The gopher land turtle is protected here i isn North Florida as well as the sea turtles that crawl up on our beaches to lay eggs. My pioneer family from the 1700 & 1800's, in deed up through the mid 1900's regularly made feasts of gopher turtle stew. It was delicious. Because of my Beach Cracker forbears they were hunted almost into non existence. Protected now you can see them trundling everywhere. Quite tame and docile.; 6/15/25, 9:58 AM
Big Mike said...: Madison has no illegal immigrants? Where are signs in Spanish? They need to remove the benches and grill, put up signs in both languages, and put dirt over the pit.; 6/15/25, 10:05 AM
Curious George said...: When I lived in Madison I would always find turtles on Odana Hills Golf Course. They lived in the ponds and creek. I worried about them getting hit by the mowers so I would put them back in the water or in the woods. Often they would wander into a sand trap and get stuck not being able to get over the lip to get out. I would relocate them too.; 6/15/25, 10:11 AM
Narr said...: JSM beat me to it.; 6/15/25, 10:11 AM
Curious George said...: "Heartless Aztec said...
The gopher land turtle is protected here i isn North Florida as well as the sea turtles that crawl up on our beaches to lay eggs."

Florida is a turtle light state too. You can't put white lights on buildings or poles, parking lots, etc. because the hatchling turtles use the moonlight reflecting off the water to navigate to the ocean. White lights confuse them and they go the wrong way. Turtle lights are amber in color.; 6/15/25, 10:17 AM
rehajm said...: last week one dud and dropped on the corner of the driveway where Amazon cuts the corner sometimes. I thought the raccoons would get them later that night but so far undisturbed by either…; 6/15/25, 10:24 AM
Jamie said...: On my walk this morning, my favorite group of ducks - the United Colors of Bennetton these three, a white one, a brown one, and a black one, and they hang around together all the time - were out for a walk. And then, as I followed them across a little footbridge, I saw, on two large rocks in the "drainage feature" (pond) over which I was crossing, two turtles of distinctly different species. I haven't looked up what kind they were yet.

The smooth-shelled one slipped into the water as I passed; the "normal" one stood his ground on his rock.; 6/15/25, 10:26 AM
Kate said...: I'm guessing they put together a quick sign in Photoshop or something, but I'd like to believe that this is such a common occurrence they had a stack of these signs in a drawer.; 6/15/25, 10:45 AM
BG said...: When my dad was alive he would go to the river and catch a snapping turtle. He'd give it to my god-mother and on New Year's Eve she would make turtle soup for supper. Yum!

I don't laugh when city people try to interact with a snapping turtle. Those things are nasty! They can take a chunk right out of your leg.

There are some very pretty turtles out there that are non-snappers. A woman in town had hers escape and ended up at the neighbor's house.; 6/15/25, 11:02 AM
Laurel said...: Mankind, the apex predator over the course of millennia, has subdued both nature and beast, at last to comfortably consider his inheritance.
And the final move by his heirs, to kill their own young while pretentiously “saving the planet”.

An ego turned rancid.; 6/15/25, 11:04 AM
Big Mike said...: A male turtle finds a female turtl whose pheromones tell him that she’s ready to mate. He covers her, copulates, then forgets he did it and wanders off.

When her cloaca has eggs in it the female looks for a sheltered place with soil that is soft, but not too soft, then she uses her strong back legs to dig a hole. When she judges that it’s deep enough she pushes out the eggs and proceeds to cover the hole using her back legs again. Then she walks off and forgets she did it.

Before I retired and we downsized out here to the Shenandoah Valley we lived near woods, and one day a female turtle dug a nest in the dirt under our deck. She was so single-minded that she kept digging (and even depositing eggs) as we stood over her and watched. Unfortunately a few days later we found where a fox or skunk or raccoon had dug up the hole and treated itself to a meal of turtle eggs.; 6/15/25, 11:38 AM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: That’s pretty great though I think I would have posted a different pretense for closing the pit. There’s a certain kind of fucktard that would see that sign as an invitation.; 6/15/25, 11:56 AM
n.n said...: A [solar] oven would provide a renewable, intermittent, cleansed energy grill.; 6/15/25, 12:27 PM
Deep State Reformer said...: I totally agree with Cracker MC Refulgent @11:56 AM. Sadly there are some f******* near me that paints little tiny turtles on the fender of their truck like the way fighter pilots did with enemy planes during the war symbolizing little "victories'' in which their F350 triumphed in combat over turtles snakes cats, etc. Any thoughts on an abatement strategy for these guys?; 6/15/25, 12:31 PM
Lazarus said...: I was starting to wonder what happened to Mitch McConnell ...; 6/15/25, 12:49 PM
Peachy said...: "A male turtle finds a female turtle whose pheromones tell him that she’s ready to mate. He covers her, copulates, then forgets he did it and wanders off."

ha!
So like real life.; 6/15/25, 12:52 PM
Quaestor said...: "Unfortunately a few days later we found where a fox or skunk or raccoon had dug up the hole and treated itself to a meal of turtle eggs."

Perhaps the agency thay erected that sign could also erect something protective over the nest until the turtle-lings hatch. They do something like that for hawksbill sea turtle nests on our Outer Banks beaches.

It would be interesting to discover what turtle species those eggs will produce. There are many possibilities for the southern Wisconsin region, including three members of the family Emydidae, and the good old common snapper, Chelydra serpentina.; 6/15/25, 1:33 PM
Quaestor said...: Turtles are remarkably complex for creatures with such apparently simple brains. It shows how little we truly understand about animal intelligence.; 6/15/25, 1:36 PM
Aggie said...: I've seen the leatherbacks in action, in the Caribbean. It's really something, an atavistic experience one should try, going out in the moonlight on some wild, unlit beach area with a guide and waiting for these leviathans to emerge from the surf, some of them 7-8 ft long or bigger, half a ton, sometimes quite a few at once. It takes them a long time to dig the hole, and only once they start laying can you approach them - they get oblivious then, while they're laying. We've gone back to the same beaches weeks later, when the clutches are starting to hatch. The conservation groups will collect nests that are exposed by varmints, sea birds, or beach erosion, and incubate them, then release the baby turtles. Really good, interesting fun.; 6/15/25, 2:47 PM
Iman said...: Well, if this pit’s a-rockin', don't bother knockin'
Yeah, if this pit’s a-rockin', don't bother knockin'
If the pit is a-rockin', don't bother, in like Flynn; 6/15/25, 5:46 PM
Deep State Reformer said...: If I had posted what I did above on 12:36PM on an Earth First! kind of webpage I'd have volunteers with slight shots and sacks of rocks guarding that hole until late summer. People are passionate about what they care about. The conservatardians types mostly think squashed wildlife is funny.; 6/15/25, 6:26 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Ash is better than sand for keeping the eggs warm? A theory.; 6/15/25, 10:38 PM
Quaestor said...: "Ash is better than sand for keeping the eggs warm?"

Turtles (not tortoises) are inefficient diggers. Gravid females will seek out sandy spots for nesting. That ash pile is evidently loose, easily excavated, and near the shore, therefore very attractive.; 6/16/25, 6:06 AM