Painted turtles and other freshwater turtles face welfare risks during overland nesting migrations and egg incubation from predation, road mortality, and climate-driven incubation temperature changes.
Female painted turtles killed on roads during nesting migrations represent losses of reproductively mature individuals whose decades of growth have been invested in their first or subsequent nesting attempts. Their deliberate nature means they do not avoid vehicles as quickly as more reactive animals. Nest predation that eliminates most nests before hatching represents reproductive failure at scale but is part of the natural predation pressure turtles evolved with. Road mortality is the significant human-added welfare burden that most warrants intervention through traffic speed reduction and crossing infrastructure.