I live in central NJ. Today we went outside and found our cat and kitten playing with a scared painted turtle in the yard. I only have experience with RES, but if painteds are anything similar, this appears to be a female (short front nails) - carapace length ~5". She does look quite healthy though.
Painted / RES are not native to this area, but have been introduced several years ago. However, they do survive just fine in this climate. She is not as shy as I'd have expected for a wild turtle, but she doesn't appear to be a recently dropped off pet since her shell is pretty dirty.
Our yard where we found her is at least 100' from the creek that runs behind the house, so I'm assuming she has recently laid eggs or is gravid and looking for a suitable place. How far do painteds typically stray from water to lay eggs in the "wild"?
My question is, what is the best place to release her? Directly behind our house, the creek has quite steep banks and is not very deep. However where it runs behind the farm next door the creek is much wider, with much softer sloped banks. I feel like that would be a better local habitat for her. I'd love to keep her; she's very pretty - but I just don't have a tank large enough to keep her happy at the moment. And I'm certainly not prepared to provide her with a place to lay eggs right now.
