brianhubbs's Identifications

I was driving west on Highway 175 after a day of bio surveys for work when I came around a corner and saw a western pond turtle in the middle of the east bound lane. I found the nearest pull off, ran back to the turtle while nervously watching other cars slow to avoid running the turtle over. I grabbed the turtle and found a safe place to stand on the side of the road to figure out the best place to reposition the turtle toward suitable habitat. The south side of the road is a steep upward slope of chaparral, and the north side of the road is steep ravine down to a stream with willows and songbirds calling. I did not have any cell coverage to find the best access down to the stream. I found a small deer trail that I followed a bit but it was too steep to safely travel and I was not able to go all the way down to the water (there was a lot of broken glass so scooching or having three points of contact was also dangerous). The turtle is a male, with only shallow bite marks on the carapace (likely coyote based on distance between k9s), all the scutes were in good condition (no chips), all limbs accounted for, and the plastron was smooth making it difficult to see age growth making this turtle at least seven plus years of age. This was one of the weirdest places to find a wpt. There are no inat observations nearby and the nearest CNDDB observations are far west along the Russian River. The stream below is called Manning Creek that feeds into Clearlake, the other more suitable habitat that the turtle could be traveling from or to would be the South Fork of Scotts Creek. I hope he stays off the road and gets to his destination safely!