Dead turtles at Carbon County Environmental Education Center spark questions about kids and nature’s nastier side.

“WHY are there turtle carcasses in a cage behind the building? They are producing a PUNGENT odor and it is not a pretty sight for visitors, especially CHILDREN.”

Such were the sentiments once left, anonymously, in a note taped to CCEEC’s front door. Capital letters and all.

Guilty! I had indeed left some dead turtles in a cage outside to rot—in July. In my defense, I didn’t kill the turtles, nor did I mean them any disrespect. I was simply trying to clean the shells for use in education, as I’d done with so many other bones and skulls over the years.

The cage was tucked away where I thought no one would find it, because I know not everyone celebrates the remarkable process of decay the way I do. It’s a pungent affair for sure, but, in my opinion at least, an elegant one, too. The breakdown and re-use of nature’s building blocks is responsible for every living thing we see, including you and me, all of us born of recycled stardust.

I’m sorry our note-writer didn’t see it that way, and I feel badly for having horrified a visitor. But I take issue with the assumption that my turtles, whether by sight or by smell, would’ve left the CHILDREN psychologically scarred for life.

Ah, the children! Such delicate little souls. How many do you think might’ve been shocked by this decomposition? And how many would’ve moved in closer to poke the shelled corpses with a stick?

True, not every kid goes head-over-heels for this sort of stuff. There’s some primal instinct in all of us to avoid whatever might spread disease or parasites. It’s why we don’t eat rotten food or come in close to hug somebody who smells bad.

But for most kids, there’s no such thing as too gross. These are the little people who happily make boogers, bugs, and bodily functions recurring topics of conversation—dinnertime conversation at that.

I’ve seen kids crowd around some distasteful CCEEC displays in rapt fascination—jars full of pickled tapeworms, dead scorpions, and dried animal scat. I’ve dissuaded them from heading home with pockets full of beetles and slugs, and once had to forcibly insist a fifth-grade girl put the leech back where she’d found it. No, young lady, you cannot take that back on the bus with you.

One friend of mine was horrified to find a severed pheasant head in her eight-year-old son’s underwear drawer. Why? Because he liked it. Faint of heart, the CHILDREN are not.

Kids do register disgust—they know gross when they see it. But most seem attracted and repelled in equal measure. Drawn in like dung beetles to a diaper pail, they can’t help themselves. “I know flies are disgusting,” said twelve-year-old Enoch to me just the other day, “but I still like watching them.”

Why are children more open to the vile and vulgar, when it’s all so… well… vile and vulgar? Some researchers think there may be an evolutionary advantage, especially when it comes to looking at dead things.

Seeing the damage nature can do to muscle and bone is an important lesson in caring for our own bodies. Getting a gander at the results of a saber-toothed cat attack might have kept my ancestors safe, the same way that looking at a shark bite keeps me out of the water in Atlantic City. Morbid curiosity might just be designed to make sure important life lessons sink in.

Some psychologists believe that seeking out a variety of negative experiences—such as watching scary movies or, you know, looking at dead turtles—gives us the chance to deal with the uncomfortable emotions these situations create, but in a safer, more controlled setting. It’s like practice for real world stressors such as danger, grief, and anxiety.

Most children, we would hope, have had limited exposure to true distress. For them, these practice encounters only serve to benefit them down the road.

Dr. Coltan Scrivner, a Danish behavioral scientist who studies how people handle frightening experiences, includes what he calls “scary play” as part of this practice. Kids who take risks by climbing trees a little too high or exploring dark woods at the edge of a playground are preparing themselves for the frightening experiences and emotions that will come with adulthood. It’s almost like vaccination, where small, controlled exposures build better immunity.

“The idea is that they’ve played with fear, or played with scary instances, played with anxiety, and presumably built some tools for dealing with those feelings,” said Scrivner in an interview for WebMD. Even games like peek-a-boo and hide-and-seek, he believes, could be mildly menacing for babies and children, early practice for the real scary stuff that shows up later in life.

Scrivner recently partnered with researchers at the University of Chicago in a study showing that people who enjoy these negative experiences—horror movie fans and the morbidly curious—fared better emotionally throughout the Covid pandemic. Yes! All the Halloween nights some of us spent watching a bloodied Jamie Lee Curtis lope away from her masked pursuer were actually doing some good.

One study by British researchers into human stress responses even suggests that viewing morbid material boosts the immune system, though, they admit, the effect is temporary.

There’s a growing body of evidence, and a general, common-sense agreement, that time outside in nature is indeed good for kids. But much of this has focused on the value of fresh air and outdoor exercise, the mental health benefits of being in a green space, or even the importance of exposure to a small amount of dirt or pollen in building a robust immune system.

But maybe there’s another facet to consider. Being outside in nature isn’t always pretty. It can be pungent, too, bloody and downright disgusting. Most CHILDREN can handle that. If it makes them more resilient, more capable of managing the stresses awaiting them in our adult world, all the better.

Granted, every child, just like every adult, will have their own level of tolerance for the nastier side of nature. We shouldn’t force them to face what makes them truly uncomfortable, nor should we shame the more squeamish among us.

But stumbling upon a few smelly turtle carcasses isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a kid. It’s possible that in some ways, the experience may even be good for them.