The biggest reason is that babies and turtles don't mix. Turtles have salmonella and babies are intrigued by turtles. Babies constantly try to touch the water, lick the tank, or stick the turtles in their mouths. Last thing we want is a baby sick with salmonella poisoning. The next biggest reason, is that it simply felt like a drag taking care of them. After a long day of taking care of Caitlin and the piggies, I never wanted to feed the turtles or clean out their filter (which kept getting clogged) so as a result, all those responsibilities fell on Jeff. I felt bad, but never bad enough to volunteer to do it. lol. I really thought that the turtles would really benefit going to a different home.
The turtles when they were babies. VERY TINY!
After several months of asking people if they were interested in adopting our turtles, and dealing with flaky friends that said they will come take them but never show up, I finally decided to consider other options.
One option was to set them free at a turtle pond -- the one I had in mind was Heavenly Pond, located in the Franklin Canyon Park in Beverly Hills. I honestly think my turtles would do fine in the wild with other turtles, as long as it was during the warm summer when introduced. Unfortunately, we are in the middle of winter right now and I didn't want to wait until summer time.
The only other option, was to find someone online, like a turtle rescue or Craigslist. I did a quick search on my iPhone one afternoon and found a place called CTCC (California Turtle and Tortoise Club). There was an email link to a person for questions about re-homeing turtles and adopting. The person replied back quickly saying that the Long Beach Chapter may take my turtles and to give the woman a call.
I called and this old, hoarse, senile-sounding woman answered and immediately said she could take my turtles, no problem. I was a bit surprised. Usually, with shelters and rescues, like for dogs and cats, they are always flooded with surrenders and cannot take in more. But this woman was all "sure, bring them over whenever. k thx bye". Ok, maybe that was an exagggeration, but that was the feeling I got from it. She also suggested contacting the Pasadena CTCC chapter, since they are located a bit closer to me (than Long Beach). I googled for the Pasadena chapter's contact info, only found an email address, sent an email, and got no response. So I called back the Long Beach chapter a week later and set up a date for the turtle drop off. We set up for this last Saturday (Jan 26).
Think I was correct.
The front gate was locked but the woman emerged from her home, telling us to simply place the turtles and their stuff over the fence and she will take care of it. I guess she doesn't want strangers entering her home, makes sense. We learned from her that she has been saving turtles for over 60 years. We also learned from her that our turtles were all boys and that she can easily find them a new home because CTCC gets hundreds of adoption requests. Then she shared stories about turtles, like a funny story about her taking care of a 100-pound tortoise that knocked her over. And that tortoise eventually got adopted by a guy that already owned ten 100-pound tortoises.
We left shortly after the turtle drop off. It was bittersweet. We've had the turtles for so long and I always thought I would keep them for much longer than 6 years. But at the same time, it was a relief to no longer have to take care of the turtles and to constantly keep Caitlin away from them. And I know surrendering the turtles to CTCC was the best option.
The turtles, the day before the drop off.
I wonder what the Bulbasaur, Mervin, and Nervin are doing right now.
Probably sulking in a corner as always.
