Stories here (along with a short video) and here. But it’s not looking good for the poor guy. One of only four of the species known to be left in the world – one other is in another Vietnamese lake, while the other two are in zoos in China.
The lake is in Hanoi’s Old Town, a fascinating area. We stayed near the lake last year and strolled around it quite a bit but didn’t see any turtles. There is a temple on a small island near one end that has a footbridge to it – not the island in the photos or video; a different small island but larger than the one shown. At the temple is the preserved carcass of a giant turtle that died there in 1968, weighing 250 kilograms and measuring 2.1 meters in length.