Tiny turtles are too cute, so people without much forethought bring them home as pets and put them in terrariums. However, there are reasons turtles do not make endearing pets. For one thing, they might outlive their keepers. Fifty years is not uncommon, and turtle expert Ben Zoltak claims there are 200-year old box turtles in the wild. Zoltak also points out turtles might carry salmonella, and sale of turtles less than four inches long was banned in 1975 for this reason.
Also turtles require more space than one might expect. A typical terrarium is not nearly large enough for turtles that have grown past their cute baby size. A common turtle pet is the red-eared slider, and it will grow to nine inches long and require 90 gallons of terrarium space. In addition, red-eared sliders are very invasive to the environment if released back into the wild. A chelonian owner must be willing to provide not only fruits and vegetables, but insects, worms and small rodents for the pet. Plus there is the expense of adequate setup just to begin turtle-keeping, and someone needs to clean the tank.
Turtle soup
Many cultures throughout history have used turtle flesh as food and the carapaces and plastrons in traditional medicines. Some species are extinct probably because hungry humans can outrun turtles and tortoises. Natives of the Grand Cayman Island enjoy turtles in their cuisine to the point of nearly exhausting wild populations, so enterprising locals resorted to sea turtle ranching to satisfy demand and replenish the wild stock.
Turtle plastrons apparently have an important place in Traditional Chinese Medicine because statistics indicate the port of Taiwan imports hundreds of tons of plastrons annually. There must be a demand. In 2011, the Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group reported 60 turtle species are headed toward extinction because of habitat destruction but primarily because of “harvesting for consumption and the pet trade.”
The report indicated species in Asia are most endangered followed closely by five kinds on the island of Madagascar. Entrepreneurs in China have attempted to provide for the demand by establishing more than a thousand turtle farms in China, but they are not the only ones. By 2007, Louisiana had 60 turtle farms that produced 10,000,000 turtles a year, and more farms were subsequently licensed. The Concordia Turtle Farm is in Wildsville, La., and its website claims it is “the world’s largest commercial producer of salmonella-free farm-raised turtles.”
Cities in Oklahoma with turtle farms include Tulsa, Holdenville, Spaulding and Wewoka. A Woodward, Okla., turtle rancher sends 8000 healthy turtles monthly to a 285-acre turtle ranch in Florida, and says he could sell more.
World Turtle Day
May 23 was the 17th World Turtle Day, sponsored by American Tortoise Rescue (ATR), a nonprofit agency established “for the protection of all species of tortoise and turtle.” ATR discourages having turtles as pets, of course, and recommends when encountering one on a road to pick it up by its sides and move it out of danger in the direction it was headed.
Legendary turtles
Long before the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, chelonians the world over captured our imagination. Aesop’s tortoise outraced the hare. Myths from India, China as well as from the Iroquois refer to the World Turtle supporting the world, and for ancient Chinese the Black Turtle was one of the “Four Fabulous Animals” along with the Azure Dragon, the Vermilion Bird and the White Tiger. African fairy tales depicted the tortoise as the cleverest animal, and ancient Egyptian amulets represented turtles as a life-defending entity. Indigenous Americans called North America “Turtle Island.”
Wisdom has been associated with chelonians throughout mythology. Therefore, it is no surprise Michaelangelo, one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, taught us, “Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza.”