General Care Discussion :: Problem. Need info.

[Freedonian]

This past week I once again rescued a number of turtles from the East River here in New York City - ten, this time. This happens a few times a year but this is the first time it has happened so early in the spring - in the end of winter, almost.

(Possibly it is necessary to mention that The East River is not a river, in fact it is a tidal strait: i.e a body of saltwater whose currents are in fact the ocean tides. Hydrologically it is part of the Atlantic Ocean. At least some of the implications of this for a freshwater basking turtle should be clear to all.)

Of the ten new rescues, I fully expected three to die soon, and unfortunately they did. But two others died unexpectedly. :( Sometimes I lose one in a batch but this is the worst it has ever been. Possibly the fact that they were put into the river this early in the year contributed to the outcome.

I usually release rescued turtles into one of the ponds in Central Park here in Manhattan but I am not sure if the weather we are having now is suitable for that. The next ten days, for instance, will be in the high 50's during the day and the mid-40's at night, but a snap of weather in the low thirties or even lower would not be surprising.

Can turtles survive in this weather? It is not possible for me to keep these guys very long.
Here is what I had a few days ago. These are the new rescues and the turtles I had before (who were all also rescues too.) Now there are less - 4 of the turtles pictured here soon died:

The surviving turtles are pretty well fed, and in good health. I intend to go and do a bit of reconnaissance in the park today and see how the ponds look, and in particular if there are any turtles out and about there now. To be honest I am not 100% that turtles can successfully hibernate/overwinter in those ponds but I think that they can. But I am not sure how to tell if there will be any food to sustain them. What should I be looking for?

Here are some "portraits" of the new rescues>
http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d102/ ... April%2008

Thanks for any info!

[TheComputerGremlin]

Why do you remove the turtles from the river? Esp. if you cannot relocate them immediately? Nature has it's own way of surviving, and I don't see a reason to remove the turtles from the setting that they were born into ... And then you disrupt the ecosystem in Central Park by adding turtles into it.

Anyhow, as much as I disagree with your methods, you now have turtles on your hands. I'm up near Albany, so I don't think it's quite warm enough yet to put the turtles back out into the wild. I'd say they could survive, but even until early May there is a threat of a random snowstorm. There certainly won't be much green food growing yet for the turtles, fish I guess would start to reproduce once it gets warm out enough, other than that, the turtles will dig around the pond to find food. I don't think you can "judge" that by looking at the pond.

[steve]

Jax, people dump them there, just like they do in Central Park. They are also sometimes released there by Buddhists thinking they are providing an act of kindness by saving them from a soup pot.

Freedonian, I would hit the turtle rescue boards and lists (like the ones on Yahoo Groups). These types of turtles might get more attention from the good people who run/read those sites and you might find few good homes!

[megcornell]

I'd be hesitant to say the ponds in central park will be warm enough now. We've really only had a handful of nice days in NY. Certainly not enough to warm the pond up enough to bring any turtles out of hibernation. So, I doubt many of them would survive that shock.
I agree with steve. Hit up local rescue groups and online forums and hopefully you'll find some other people willing to adopt or at least temporarily house turtles until weather conditions improve. I think if you can somehow hold out a few more weeks, they'll have a much better shot. You're doing a very nice thing, it's unfortunate how easy it is to get and dump turtles in NYC (and other places). Those turtles are lucky you found them.

[Freedonian]

Actually, every turtle I have is a rescue, from the East River, where they were all released by Buddhists as a religious act. Obviously some people did not understand the implications of the fact that The East River is a tidal strait, as I mentioned in the second paragraph of the original post. Based on my experience, a turtle can not survive for more than three days in the river.

At any rate, I just returned from a very nice outing in Central Park, and I saw large numbers of turtles looking quite healthy basking in the sun. I was more than a little surprised to see such numbers. I also checked with one of the Park Rangers and found out that turtles are capable of hibernating in ALL the lakes in Central Park (with one exception: a very small and extremely shallow "pond' where people sail model boats.) It's apparent to me that turtles have no trouble at all successfully surviving the winter in the bottom of the lakes in Central Park.

So tomorrow, quite early, I will pack up a bunch of turtles and go to release them in one of the ponds that is less-crowded than the others, and hopefully they will thrive. Unless anyone has compelling reasons for me to wait.

( I took quite a few photos of what I saw, and I will put some up on my page later, if anyone wants to look.)

@megcornell: thank you for the very kind words! It is greatly appreciated!
:)

[Freedonian]

Okay, I have a few pictures up here:
http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d102/ ... il%202008/

I do not have a great camera, and in places it was nearly impossible to get close enough to the turtles to take good pictures (bad for photographers but good for turtles.)

As you can see - although you might have to strain your eyes a bit in order to see - is that there were quite a few turtles out in the sun today.

[mikee]

Free - do Turtles do well in brackish water if it is gradual. Putting turtle from plain water to brackish or salt water is a shock on their system. I have mine in water that has 1.4 ppt salt and they do fine. I raise it slowly and keep it at that. That may have been the problem with the couple that died on you right out of the East River. If you are dead set on putting them in the Central Park water please make sure that the temp. is the same as you have in the container you have them in. Good Luck!!

[TheComputerGremlin]

Since you are rather convinced this is an act of local Buddhists, why don't you contact them and ask them to not do it? Suggest other locations where they can survive instead. I can't imagine that they wouldn't comply if they were told that their releasing of life was actually immediate death to the turtles. I also thought that Buddhists usually painted on the turtles shells, though none of these show that ... I don't question that these are likely somehow released improperly, I just question that it is always the Buddhists.