Maine’s Turtle Tunnel Has Traffic Now: Mink, Muskrats, Salamanders, Snappers

For years, a stretch of Route 236 in Eliot, Maine, was a bad place to be a turtle. In 2015 a state biologist called it the deadliest stretch in Maine for turtles.⁵ Now state biologists say a wildlife tunnel built under the road in 2021 is working.¹

At a January 27 presentation at the Eliot Town Office, biologists from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife reported that turtle road deaths on that section have dropped. They described the underpass as the first of its kind in Maine, according to The Maine Monitor, which covered the presentation.¹

“There’s been a substantial reduction in turtle mortalities,” Greg LeClair, a municipal planning biologist with the department, said, as reported by the Monitor. “Follow-up surveys have shown much fewer turtles being crushed on that section of road.”¹ That finding comes from the presentation itself. The Monitor’s story did not include the survey numbers, and no published report of the data has been found.

Why a few turtles matter so much

The project was built with the Blanding’s turtle in mind. In Maine, the species lives only in York County and southern Cumberland County. The state listed it as threatened in 1986 and endangered in 1997.¹

Blanding’s turtles can live more than 70 years, and females don’t reach maturity until somewhere between 14 and 20.¹ A species that matures that slowly can’t easily make up for losses.

“Losing one or two turtles actually matters,” Kevin Ryan, a reptile and amphibian biologist with the department, said, according to the Monitor.¹

According to the department, no Blanding’s turtle has been found dead on the road since the crossing went in. A small number of snapping turtles and painted turtles have been killed.¹

What got built

The Maine Department of Transportation worked with federal and state wildlife agencies to replace a 36-inch culvert with a passage eight feet wide and six feet tall.¹⁴ The structure has dry banks along its sides and is designed for Blanding’s turtles, spotted turtles and other small wildlife.⁴

Roadside fencing steers animals toward the entrance instead of onto the pavement. The tunnel links wetlands on both sides of the highway, including a nearly 100-acre parcel protected by a conservation easement with Great Works Regional Land Trust.¹ Maine DOT will maintain it as a wildlife crossing in perpetuity.⁴

The underpass and fencing cost about $400,000, according to the Monitor. The Maine Turnpike Authority paid a large share to make up for wetland disturbance from building the York toll plaza.¹ Back in 2015, the authority agreed to give the state $170,000 for work in Eliot, including a wider tunnel and low fences.⁵ The Maine Natural Resource Conservation Program, which awarded $120,000, lists the total project cost as $455,500. The two figures may cover different parts of the work.⁴

Caught on camera

In summer 2025, Maine DOT deployed special game cameras with a light beam. Shortly after 9 a.m. on June 27, one of them photographed a Blanding’s turtle in the tunnel.¹ That single image is the camera evidence for the endangered species so far.

Plenty of other animals showed up. Over nearly five months, the cameras took more than 270 wildlife photos in the tunnel, showing snapping turtles, salamanders, muskrats and mink.¹