Why Do Turtles Attack Black Safety Boots?

A question that has likely never been asked in the world of health and safety is why turtles will attack people who are wearing black safety shoes, mostly because the chances of turtles being on many worksites are so low as to be effectively zero.

Nonetheless, the rise of viral videos showing the typically timid creatures smacking their shells hard against black leather but not necessarily lighter-coloured shoes is the result of some fascinating facts about colour perception, and it may help some firms that happen to have a pet amphibian or work on beaches with a turtle population.

Turtles tend to not exactly be aggressive creatures, and it can come as a surprise to some people that turtles would attack anything at all. However, multiple random attacks on a range of different beaches by different species suggest a common issue with black shoes.

The reason for it is not some kind of dislike for formal workwear but instead is due to a confluence of different reasons based on how turtles see the world and their survival instincts.

Turtles have excellent colour perception, but one which tends to be more biased towards the blue and green visual ranges rather than reds and oranges, which in certain light levels appear more as black.

Given that a lot of predators of certain turtle species are colours that they are not the best at perceiving, there is the potential for false positives, leading to them headbutting shoes as a survival mechanism.

This also may explain why they are particularly prone to aggression against black shoes on sunny days when the bright light of the sun has a tendency to be absorbed by black shoes or reflected by polished finishes.

Some theories suggest that turtles see black shoes not as predators but as competition, and attack them as a means to assert dominance.

Whatever the reason may happen to be, it is something to be mindful of for contractors who happen to be working in animal enclosures or close to wild turtle sites.