redearslider.com

A few days back I was fishing at a local pond in Delaware when I looked up on the road and noticed a squashed baby turtle that was not there when I arrived 5 minutes beforehand. I walked over to have a look and sure enough it was still bleeding so it must have just happened. As I was standing there, a second baby turtle attempted to cross the road. Luckily I had a bucket nearby, and I snatched it up before a car ran over it as well. As I was bending over to pick up, a third baby turtle came walking in my direction. I grabbed that one and headed in the direction it was coming from. When I got to the shoulder on the other side of the road, I found 8 more hatchlings, all the size of a quarter, just waiting to cross.

Although I understand peoples concerns about removing wild animals from their natural habitats, I could not just leave them behind. I really don't want to get involved in an ethics discussion about this issue, so please refrain from telling me to return them. 8 of the ten will be returned today.

The reason I am posting this thread is to ask a few question.
1. What are the ramifications of removing a turtle from one body of water, and placing them in another only 30 miles away?
2. Although together like family, these turtles appeared to have 2 different characteristics. 8 of them had orange bottoms and 2 of them yellow. I found out that the orange ones are Northern red-bellied cooter, while the others are red-ear sliders. The question is, are these turtles related? Are cooter's protected?
3. Is it possible for red-ears and red-bellies to breed together in the wild, or in captivity?

Thanks for your interests,

Cole~

Well that's good that you saved them from the road and that you're returning 8 out of the 10. I would probably be very tempted to do the same if it were me. Returning the turtles to another location might not be a good idea since you can't know for certain that the new location will be suitable enough. Can you put them in the water where you were fishing (since that's where they were from anyway)? That's also interesting that you had two different types in the same clutch. It's possible that the parents were either different or more likey that they both possessed both types of genes. I believe they are all of the same genus and can breed together. Make sure to read up on their care and habitat requirements so you can provide them with a good home.

That was very kind of you to protect them from being run over. Do you have any idea why they were leaving the pond? It sounds like they were being chased.

Do you have any reason to think the the pond wasn't safe for them (too small or crowded, busy streets all around, not clean)? Why would you be tempted to relocate them?

I found on the internet where sliders and map turtles may sometimes interbreed but didn't see anything about slider-cooter mixes. Sliders and cooters, along with map turtles and painted turtles are all of a type called basking turtles.

slider cooter mixes are popular and yes, they do exist.

i think the female momma turtle laid her eggs across the street from the pond, am i correct in saying that? then the babies would just want to get to their "home"

i would not put the babies in another body of water. they could pass on any type of disease to a group of perfectly healthy turtles and vis vera. good luck!

That's a good poing, Jessy (and welcome to the forum! ). Kind of like when the europeans came to this continent and killed off a lot of the local population because of the foreign viruses they brought along with them. The locals had no antibodies for those viruses as they had never been introduced to them before the settlers arrived.

haha thanks for the welcome, david!

and great metaphor.......thats exactly what i mean. back into the original pond would be best for both parties. although now i am afraid that since they have been in captivity it may harm them anyway....
put them back ASAP

SpotsMama wrote:Do you have any idea why they were leaving the pond?

Do you have any reason to think the the pond wasn't safe for them (too small or crowded, busy streets all around, not clean)? Why would you be tempted to relocate them?

There are many reasons why they would be leaving the area where they had been residing. Let me try and describe the location for you, without giving out my secret bass hole.

There is a large lake that has a road that runs beside it. Along one portion of the lake where the road is, there is a cove filled with massive large mouth bass, crappie, pickerel and carp... In the cove there is 2 extremely large drainage pipes side by side that run under the road and lead to a much smaller pond on the other side which also contains many nice fish. The smaller pond is where the turtles were coming from, but they were using the roadway as a crossing point instead of the drainage pipes. There are steel gaurd rails running along the road on both sides. Along the gaurd rail on any given day you can walk by and count hundreds upon hundreds of dead turtles of every size that have been run over. Its really sad to fish there and look at all the turtle carcas's as I am a huge turtle fanatic.

So I believe they had plenty of reason to leave the area they were in. Here in Delaware, we have no shortage of turtles that is for sure. At that particular location, I think it has gone a bit overboard and seems to be over populated(despite all the dead ones).

I have since gone back and found that there are hundreds of baby turtles everywhere. Maybe its just been a good year for them who knows. Anyway, I was thinking of moving them to a friends farm pond since I have only ever seen 2 turtles in there in my life. But I guess that could mean its not a suitable habitat.

I appreciate all your guys advice. This is a nice site here. And uh, how come I didnt get a welcome here? I'm a newbie too.

Cole~

Greetings Cole and welcome to the forum! I'm sorry - I didn't recognize you as a newbie!

There's an into section on the forum. Why don't you start a thread on there and tell us a little about yourself. You'll find you are warmly welcomed I'm sure. You sound like a caring person who happens to live in a place with a bunch of turtles - very interesting!

Wow that sounds like a cool spot you have there for fishing and for turtles! All those babies must be the reason why there is such a healthy population of bass in there. Ha ha, if I lived near you I'd be looking for that spot too! Don't worry, it's too far a drive for me. That's a shame about the dead turtles though. I always hate seeing roadkill of any kind.

Maybe your friends farm pond would make a good new home for these guys. If it's an isolated body of water, it may be that it's not an easy pond to find for the turtles and that's why there aren't that many in there. If you've seen a couple in there before then these guys may do okay too.