If you find an injured animal, call a rehabber for help immediately! Not in a couple hours, not when you get out of work at the end of the day, not after a day or two of “wait and see”…and certainly not four full months later. That’s what the finder of this poor girl did, and it cost her her life.
This turtle was found in a person’s backyard being chewed on by the owner’s dog in August. The person took one look at a bleeding turtle with a hole chewed through its shell and thought, “I’m just going to kidnap this animal and wing it.” They tried to keep this turtle as a pet and gave it no medical intervention whatsoever, and when they did have it in their house in some horrid little tank that probably wasn’t kept clean feeding it god knows what…surprise, surprise: she developed septicemia and necrosis of the skin and shell.
It wasn’t until late December, which was four months later, that this person finally thought to seek help. By this time, the turtle was practically already dead, but somehow still hanging on. The wildlife vets she was brought to had to do multiple surgeries to remove all the rotting tissue and if she survived she would need months of intensive care and recovery.
After surgery, the vets handed her over to me with a very guarded prognosis. She was lethargic and had been losing weight with no interest in food and barely even wanted to drink. It wasn’t much to work with, but I resolved to do my best.
Now, when I got her, it was the week right before Christmas, and I’d made plans for a friend to feed and water the stable overwintering patients while I visited various family over the long weekend. I wasn’t going to saddle someone else with the responsibility of injections and intensive care, so I made a plan to bring my turtle patient with me over the holidays. I asked the people I was staying with to have a warm, dark, and quiet place away from the festivities to keep her in her little hospital tank, and I packed a turtle bag with everything I would need to keep her alive while traveling.
She survived the trip and for several days after, but I could kind of tell when I got her in and she wasn’t fighting her shots or opening her eyes that she probably wouldn’t pull through. And I am sad to say that I was right. Her little body had been through so much and by the time she got help it was already too late.
If the finder had sought help right away, it’s almost guaranteed that she would have made a full recovery. Her initial injuries weren’t really that bad, and medical intervention would have helped her get stronger and regrow her shell. Instead, she received no help and was actively injured further through ignorance and neglect. Right now, my overwintering patients are gearing up for release. They’ve been resting and healing for months and the lengthening daylight has made them more active. This turtle could have been among them, getting ready to go home to the wild. But no, she is dead and decomposing, all because one person with no knowledge of what they were doing tried to go it alone. I can’t imagine they even bothered to google anything, because a search for any variation of, “What do I do with an injured animal I found?” is going to come up with “call a rehabber” or “bring it to a vet”. Even if you don’t reach the exact right person on the first try, most people in any kind of animal care profession will at least point you in the right direction.
There is no excuse for this kind of willful ignorance. The internet exists and is easily searchable for wildlife rescues and rehabber listings. There is an app for your phone that uses your location and what kind of animal you found to give you the number of the nearest rehabber to call (Animal Help Now). Even a query on social media would have turned up at least one acquaintance with the good advice of, “seek professional help”. Hell, if you don’t have a phone or the internet at home, a trip to the police station, animal control, a neighbor, a friend, or even a freaking library would give you a phone number of someone who can help.
By not getting this turtle help right away, the finder is the one who killed her.
Turtle Haven 