My First Rescue

When I woke up for work this morning it was just like any other day. Little did I know that today would be my first animal rescue! I was driving to work on Route 100 when I saw something round crawling in the road. I quickly realized that it was a Box Turtle and it needed my help. The street was fairly busy and the Box Turtle was trying to cross the road. It might have been trying to find a place to lay its eggs. I knew the turtle wouldn’t stop until it got across the street, so I had to stop and help it. I turned the car around and pulled off in a driveway close to where the turtle was crossing. I was only a couple of minutes away from work so I knew the turtle would be fine in my car until I could release it at the lake near my work.

I waited for the cars to pass and then I picked the turtle up by his shell. I put it on the floor in front of my passenger seat figuring it wouldn’t move because it was tucked away in its shell seemingly too scared to come back out. However, the turtle started to get comfortable with its surroundings. The turtle started climbing up into the area where my glove compartment is located. I pulled over again, grabbed an old sweatshirt from my trunk, and placed the turtle in it on my front seat. This time the turtle stayed put.

When I got to work I was so excited to tell Jane about my rescue. I left the turtle on my front seat and ran inside to get a box to carry it inside and show it off. I have been trying to get some pictures of a turtle for a while now and here was my chance! The turtle was so beautiful and had great colors. The turtle didn’t seem to like being contained so we didn’t want to keep it for too long. We tried to make it more comfortable by putting some water in the container because turtles love that. After that we went outside on the deck to take some pictures with it. Surprisingly it didn’t give us too much resistance.

After we took the pictures we were ready to release it. We wanted to release the turtle where we had found it but we were afraid that the turtle would try and cross the street again. Jane said she knew the perfect spot to put it. We went around the corner to a meadow located close to the lake. When we put it back on the ground we could tell the turtle was happy to be out of the box and in nature! I am so glad I finally got to take some pictures of a turtle and an adorable one at that! I guess I am truly part of the Take A Walk® group now that I have my first animal rescue under my belt!

After we released the turtle we did some research to find out if it was a male or female. There are a couple of ways you can differentiate between a male and a female Box Turtle. First, take a look at the carapace (the top shell). They are different shapes and the female shell is bigger and rounder where the male is a little smaller and seemingly more flat. Second, the turtles have different plastron (bottom of the shell). The male plastron is concave and the females are almost completely flat. Third, you can tell the difference between the sexes by their eyes. The males have very red or orange eyes and the females have light orange or brown eyes. After going through the pictures that we took of our new friend, the turtle, we decided that he was a male.