Also, most eggs do not survive and usually few of the hatchlings survive. Animals programmed by nature to reproduce for 60 or 70 years are now living for a fraction of that time. They're being taken from the wild or killed by cars and predators like raccoons, which thrive in disturbed habitats and can pull a turtle out of its shell limb by limb. I can look at a population and tell that it's dying out because there are basically no young or teenage turtles, just aging adults. It may be 30 years or longer before the last remnants are gone, but the population already is functionally extinct.
Every freshwater turtle needs some upland habitat, if only for a nest site.
That's true even of the monstrous alligator snapping turtle, though the 200-pound creature rarely leaves the bottom of southern rivers and lakes, where it wiggles a pink wormlike appendage on its tongue to attract fish. But the wood turtle and several other species lead largely terrestrial lives from late spring to fall. While the creatures' aquatic habitats might be protected by laws against destroying wetlands, their complex home ranges are routinely chopped up by new roads and country home developments. After emerging from hibernation, wood turtles wander into forests, meadows and old fields, feeding on moss, grass, leaves, wild berries, insects, snails, earthworms and carrion. Every wood turtle in the state crosses a road at least once or twice a year, and a lot of them get run over.