During my first week volunteering for Pam, I was not shocked to discover that she had several non-native turtle species in her care, which she came by in the usual manner:
Person with a pet turtle they can’t care for anymore: You do turtles, right?
Wildlife rescuer: Yes, I help wild turtles that are sick or injured get better.
Person: Can you take my red-eared slider [or insert other non-native species here]? I can’t/don’t want to take care of him/her anymore.
Rescuer: That’s not really what we do here…
Person: The animal shelter only takes dogs and cats, though.
Rescuer: And our mission is to rehabilitate wild turtles, not rehome pets.
Person: He could be a wild turtle, if I just put him in a pond near my house, right?
Rescuer: NO! That’s THE WORST thing you could possibly do! He’ll either endanger the wild population of turtles with unknown disease and steal all their food sources, or he’ll die because he’s not meant to be in this area.
Person: Well I can’t find anybody else to take him[read: I haven’t really tried, because turtle rescue operations do exist, even if they are over capacity most of the time]…If you can’t take him, I’ll probably just let him go anyway.
Rescuer: *sigh*
I have four pet turtles. One of them I rescued on purpose. The other three I acquired by being known as “the turtle lady”, and not wanting invasive species to be “set free” into a pond they didn’t belong in or not having the heart to turn away an animal that the owners had no clue how to care for and would eventually kill through neglect. So when Pam said she had half a dozen red-eared sliders and other turtles that needed real homes, I felt her pain. I told her that I’m at capacity for permanent reptilian residents, but the reason I thought I could handle rehab was because I would have the turtles for weeks or months, not decades. However, I had some ideas on finding other people to adopt her turtles. I would use…the Internet!
My first big hurdle is finding places which will let you list pets that are not cats or dogs as an individual rather than a rescue organization. Pam didn’t want her wildlife operation to become associated with pet rescue, so as to invite more unwanted pet turtles to be dropped off, so she didn’t want me using that name. Pam’s in contact with turtle organizations in the area, and all of them seem to be over capacity for unwanted pets at the moment, but for whatever reason, none of them are listing their turtles on public websites for adoption. I feel like they’d have a little bit more luck that way.
My first thought was PetFinder, and they do allow individuals to post animals on their website, though they require certain paperwork. Because it was turtles, not dogs, I had to email them about it anyway, and after two weeks I have not heard anything back, so I decided to look into other pet websites.
I recently started using a website called NextDoor, which is like a neighborhood forum, and they have a pets section, so I posted that I was looking for people interested in becoming turtle owners. I got one response, but the person said they “used to keep” turtles when they were younger, but turtles live 40 years or more, so if she “used to keep” them, where are they now? She should still have them, unless she is like so many people who didn’t know what they were doing and let them die, or she was one of those people who would find a wild turtle in their yard, keep it for a few weeks, then let it go again, which is obviously not good, but there are worse things a person could do to a turtle. I didn’t question her on that, though, in my message that I sent to her. I sent a basic outline of turtle care needs, emphasized that their care has changed over the years as we learn more about them, and sent a couple of good links about providing turtle habitat indoors. Weeks went by and I never got a response. I think the person realized that it’d actually be work and that they needed more than a tiny bowl of water to keep a pet turtle. Good riddance.
Next up was AdoptAPet. They focus more on person-to-person adoption than rescue organizations, so I thought that would be perfect. However, you have to email them directly about listing non-dog or cat species. So, I sent them an email and am currently waiting to hear back.
Petango was one I hadn’t heard of before my google search, and they had no information whatsoever on their site about how to list pets, nor whether signing up for an account was just for those looking to adopt or not, so I wan’t going to create one. Their contact form glitched out, and they had no email listed. Most websites have an “info@….” email address even if it’s not listed, so I sent an email there, and I most likely won’t hear back.
RescueMe.org let me sign up and post animals right away, so I’m going to be trying them out soon. I’ll need to get pictures and stories from Pam. The website seems kind of old and clunky (only 1 picture, not a lot of detail), but it may get the job done. We’ll see. Out of curiosity, I looked to see what competition my turtles had and found someone giving away 2 species of turtle I don’t have along with all their enclosure stuff and I kind of want them, but I know I don’t have room for a Russian tortoise nor an African side-neck turtle. Even if they come with their tanks, I have no more space inside the house for tanks to go permanently.
Everything else I looked into was just cats and dogs.
Now I’ll just have to wait and see.
Side note: The turtle pictured in this post is my first turtle, Judy. She’s not up for adoption, of course, but if anyone wants a turtle that looks a lot like her, I know a guy…
Turtle Haven 
One of the ports we stopped at was Tristan. Very impressive as a animal sanctuary including turtles. I thought of you
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