I saw a big study of Mississippian culture shell middens and was surprised to see that the most common shell was turtle. There must have been a lot more turtles back then in the midwest...

yep - it is hard to miss something you have never seen. North America was teeming with life.. how would anyone know it now, living in car trips to stores and watching TV only ?

It's still teeming with life for those who bother to go out in search of it. Yellowstone is overcrowded but it astonishes me how few visitors come to, say, Bridger-Teton National Forest (other than for that Great American Eclipse, during which the traffic began to evoke Times Square) and Couer d'Alene National Forest.

I live in rural Arkansas, where we have lots of turtles and terrapins.

I learned this year that if you see a turtle on the road and want to move it (so it doesn't get run over) you should carry it to the edge of the road and place the turtle in the same direction it was travelling. If you orient it differently, or place it on the 'starting' side of the road, the persistent turtle will re-orient and again go on the road to advance in the original direction.