In April, I found a turtle in the parking lot of my apartment building in NC (not near any water,) so I took it in and gave it a good home. I figured it was a pet that someone had lost or abondoned. After some research, I believe that it is a wild turtle that somebody had brought back to our building and let go. It is not a snapping turtle, but resembles a painted turtle without distinct color patterns. The turtle is thriving in my care, and is growing larger. My questions are…
I have since moved to upstate NY. Since I figure that this turtle is wild, I want to release it in the Erie Canal. Will he be able to adapt to the climate here as opposed to NC? Will he still be able to find food on his own after being in an aquarium for 4 months? I want to let him go, but I don’t want him to die as a result. Please help…
Need to find out what kind of turtle it is, first. Some have a pretty wide range, while some would have problems up north. I tried to find some online herpetological guides but came up empty after 5 minutes searching, but I bet you could find something. If not, there are tons of books available that would not be expensive, my Dad has some that have all the reptiles in North America listed, with pictures.
I’m going to be the spoil-sport here and say it’s probably not a great idea to release it, especially if that species isn’t found were you are. When I went to high school in upstate New York, my biology teacher raised newts from Virginia to study their behavior. When he moved away, he euthanized them rather than release them into the wild. We were shocked, but he had his reasons:
They might have carried diseases that could infect native species
Another biologist might stumble upon one of them and assume the species was naturally spreading north, and waste time looking into it
They weren’t native to such a harsh climate, and might have suffered from the cold
If you were going to release it, you probably should have done so before you left North Carolina.
If you’ve kept the turtle for four months already, haven’t you gotten kind of attached to him/her? It lives in your house, in a comfy aquarium, eating bits of whatever you give it without having to do any work, and now you think it’ll like living in Erie Canal? Are you nuts!? Just keep it, or find a friend to keep it (especially if it was little when you first found it and never had to do much food-scavenging or predator-escaping on its own).
Like Badtz said, at least find out what it is and if it’s native/ within its home range. If not, don’t release it, for the good reasons bibliophage brought up. Also, take it to the vet to make sure it’s healthy before letting it loose on an unsuspecting environment. Knowing its species will also help you determine its approximate age when you found it. If it was a juvenile, I would say keep it, because it probably won’t survive in the wild after spending so much time in captivity.
[mock accusatory voice]Don’t you like having the turtle?[/mock accusatory voice]
You might try the online field guides at http://www.enature.com to see if you can ID your turtle. If you’re looking for a new home (or just some advice), see if there’s a natural history museum in your area. Many of them keep live animals for exhibits (and also employ people who tend to enjoy keeping such animals and know a lot about it).
It is a bad idea to release a non-indigenous animal into the wild. At best, that animal will die because it cannot adapt to the new ecosystem. At worst, it harms the existing ecosystem. Examples of this are people who decide to dump their aquarium tanks into the local stream and the exotic snails they were keeping thrive and devastate the local flora.
You probably should keep the turtle or give it to a pet store.
I suppose you could identify the species and see if its natural range includes NY as well as NC…but see bibliophage’s reply.