Turtle rescue 911....

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

suziquzie

Chef Extraordinaire
Joined
Nov 6, 2007
Messages
11,488
Location
MN
Did we do the right thing?:ermm:

My step-dad in law saw this poor thing on the road on its back baking in the sun. He brought it with him here, DH put it in the kiddie pool w/ a little water for awhile to make sure it's back legs were still going to work.
Once it started trying to get out of the pool a few hours later they put some ultra-man-type super glue on the cracked shell, let it dry and set it free by the creek.

Do you think it'll be ok? I love turtles. We have a huge hawk living in our trees, do you think it was food? I wish I coulda put a GPS on it. :huh:

Oh, please excuse the kids artwork on the pick-a-nik table. Note to self, washable means skin with soap. :ohmy:
 

Attachments

  • IMG_2702.jpg
    IMG_2702.jpg
    70.1 KB · Views: 126
  • IMG_2704.jpg
    IMG_2704.jpg
    52.9 KB · Views: 127
  • IMG_2706.jpg
    IMG_2706.jpg
    59.2 KB · Views: 121
Poor thing... :( I hope it is okay... A few months ago I saw a big turtle on the side of the highway (what you guys call a freeway) and I ALMOST stopped to pick it up and turn it around.... but by the time I decided to I was too far.. I still feel the guilt :(
 
I did competative gymnastics and rollerskating from 4yrs old till I was about 14.. and we traveled constantly going to competitions.. My mom and I would keep a box on the floor behind my seat JUST for turtles we found. We'd be driving along and see one, mom would pull over on the shoulder, hold my hand, and we'd run out and grab it and take it home. My dad built me a special cage in our backyard where I kept them. Then every fall, we would set them free for the winter at a park. Anyways, We found one once that had a cracked shell, and, although we didn't glue it, it did survive. We even saw it at the park a year after we let it go. So i'm pretty sure the turtle will be fine.. I would only be concerned about the glue hurting it?... but it may not. I don't know. :)
 
Bless you for taking this guy in and caring for him. Turtles are very hard to keep in captivity. And looking at that crack, it is hard to tell if he will make it. The worst thing would be secondary infections. I suspect he was run over. As for the super-glue... a vet probably would have used something similar.
 
haha BT... it was discussed....DH and S-FIL of course.
but there were 9 of us here and the little thing just wasn't enough to share.
 
Well, I don't know for sure, suzi, but it sounds to me as if your S-FIL and you both did the right thing to help the poor little guy!

Lee
 
Absolutely. But I would drop him off at a vet, with no obligation to you.
I see turtles in our roads all the time. The first time, I stopped to pick him up and put him by the edge of the canal and it scratched me. (They are strong little buggers) That scratch became very infected. I made sure, from then on, I kept gloves in the truck. They have come in handy many times. I also keep
antibacterial wipes in the truck.
Make sure you wash your hand each time you handle this poor baby.
His shell needs mending. It will not heal on its own and they carry alot of bacterial stuff that will kill him. It needs antibiotics, and they have a way of concocting some kind of plaster/plastic mold to seal his wound and keep out bacteria.
It's not fair to let him stay in that condition.
You rescued him from the road, but you need to do the next step. The animal is suffering.
Please don't let that critter continue to suffer.

Good luck wth your new critter.

 
We already let it go right away on Saturday.... it wanted to go away and it wasn't fair to it to keep it.
I didn't think it was right to suddenly decide for the poor thing it was no longer allowed to be a wild animal and now be my pet.
I believe you have to allow nature to be nature.
 
suzi - the only thing I would do is call a vet to see if what you did was the right thing for future reference. I certainly don't know a thing about turtles. You did what you could and at least it didn't bake on the side of the road.

The pick-a-nic table is beautimous :LOL: Don't you dare try to wash off their artwork!!!! :glare:
 
Suzi my dad did stuff like that all the time with turtles. They were everywhere by his house. He'd always save them from the side of the road and set them free in the pond. Of coourse I think you did the right thing.
 
I used to catch turtles just like this one in Minnehaha creek all the time when I was a kid. I pretty much always had pet snakes and turtles I caught until high school. What a geek!

Anyway, IMO, you did exactly the right thing. I hope the little guy is ok, but you never know. You did give him a fighting chance though.

A few summers ago I saw a huge snapping turtle in the middle of a busy road. I was the only one that stopped. It was really huge and I was pretty nervous since they can sever fingers but I did pick it up by the tail and get it off the road and into a pond. I would never leave an animal of any sort in the road.
 
I used to catch turtles just like this one in Minnehaha creek all the time when I was a kid. I pretty much always had pet snakes and turtles I caught until high school. What a geek!

Anyway, IMO, you did exactly the right thing. I hope the little guy is ok, but you never know. You did give him a fighting chance though.

A few summers ago I saw a huge snapping turtle in the middle of a busy road. I was the only one that stopped. It was really huge and I was pretty nervous since they can sever fingers but I did pick it up by the tail and get it off the road and into a pond. I would never leave an animal of any sort in the road.

Hey Jennyema... a little trick I learned about capturing snapping turtles is to throw a towel or shirt over their head before picking them up. That will calm them a bit and they will stop snapping so much.
 
I agree with LadyCook: contact a wildlife rehabilitation source, possibly through your vet if you find any "wild" creature in need of assistance.

And Quicksilver is correct about the turtles carrying many types of bacteria... the hand washing is a good thing.

A Rant, and not meant to be taken personally....

The turtle was a Red Eared Slider... I had one for eleven years. They live around water, and sadly, are commonly sold in Asian and Hispanic markets out here in Cali. They are the size of a silver dollar when they're sold, so they look "cute" and are frequently sold as pets.

Then they out grow their tiny bowls and no one wants them anymore or it's too expensive to buy an aquarium and a basking light and rock and water filter and meds for shell problems and all the other "acoutrements" that are needed for a happy & healthy turtle (similar to the Easter bunny syndrome) so they are set free somewhere. (I found three bunnies in my old neighborhood, a few months after Easter, when they outgrew their cages and the interest of the owners...) There is a "turtle Lady" out here who has converted her yard to house these turtles - she has sooo many - people drop them off at her place all the time. I give her $$ - there's no way I could house all the "strays" I find...
 
You did it all wrong. Half of the job was already done for you, all you had to do was finish it. Soup, that was the right solution.
 
pot clanger, there are some really fierce and interesting debates on the internet about the sale of sliders in asian communities in the u.s.. the law is gotten around by selling them for food, but they're really sold for pets. who could make a meal out of a single, coin-sized turtle?

i found out about it when our neighbor bought one in chinatown for the kids she was babysitting, then got stuck with it when the parents refused.

so we took it in, and i got the whole set up in a 20 gallon tank, and my son named him/her "tuga".
tuga has quadrupled in size in a year.

we were thinking of getting a companion from chinatown this year, but then we're just supporting the black market industry.

dw suggested we find a young one at a lake, but i think it's cruel to take a wild thing into captivity.

lots of issues for a little dinosaur, huh?
 
Down here, there sale is illegal. So pet shops weren't on top of the new law when inacted and got in trouble.
We had these as kids, and they proved alot of work in proportion to their size. But oh, they were to race!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom