Box Turtle found HELP

J

Jasonandmolly

New Member
May 25, 2007
1
0
Hello. I live in Lehighton, PA. This morning i found a box turtle on a busy 4 lane road. I Got to her just before she was hit by a car. Normally i would just return her to the area i found her. In this case the area she was walking from was a hill with a small patch of trees littered with trash between 2 roads and the highway, with many houses around. I was shocked to find a turtle living right in town. I wasnt sure what to do so i have her here at home. I Keep reading that if you move a box turtle to a new place, it will roam looking for its home area and most likely not survive. There are many good places right near me where i could take it. The last thing i wanted to do was remove it from the wild, i just didnt think i had a choice. I do have a couple of captive bred turtles and one adult that i have had almost 20 years, one that i found when i was a kid and didnt know any better at the time not to remove them from their home.
Would like your opinions on what I should do. I want to release her, but not if that means a likely death.
Thank you for any advice,
Jason
 
Teegate

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,851
8,554
I don’t know the proper thing to do, but if it was me I would release it as close to the location I found it as possible where it is at least semi safe.

Guy
 
woodjin

woodjin

Piney
Nov 8, 2004
4,342
328
Near Mt. Misery
I'm not a herper compared to some on the forum but this I do know:
Box turtles can live in a relatively small area with a great deal of human activity and often when a box turtle is relocated it exposes new disease into a new box turtle population. Apparently, box turtles can live within a population that has adjusted to a strain of disease but a different population would not be able to tolerate it. That is my understanding of it anyway. Given that circumstance it would be in the turtles best interest, and the interest of other turtle populations, to release it away from the road as far away from the road as possible(in the direction it was heading), but in the same area. Good luck.

Jeff
 
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