My Injured Turtle ~ (updated)

Update on the turtle  ~~~~~~~  Scroll to the end

Mike and I were out for a nice walk yesterday and noticed several turtles hanging out in the pond. Nothing unusual there but as we watched we noticed one was a little baby and he stayed on top of the water. Usually when the turtles see us they will duck under unless, of course, they are being fed. He was too far away to tell what kind of turtle he was but we did notice two softshell turtles hanging out nearby. We thought, "Aw, isn't that cute, mother and father are keeping an eye on him."

Nope! About that time one of the soft shells comes up underneath the little one, takes a bite out of him and pulls him under. 

Mike to the rescue!

Our hero immediately jumped into the water, headless of the dangers, he swam vigorously toward the baby, clobbering soft shell after vile soft shell out of the way until.....

(Naw, he went and got the floatie.)

We get a closer look and he is missing both left legs and his right eye.

So, we set up the aquarium in the house and hope we can help him.

Here he is in his new home. I gave him some green lettuce and some of the pond fish food. I also scooped some minnows out of the pond and let them swim around with him.

Meanwhile, I have been bragging about the flowers blooming here. 

So I had another little adventure today also. I was clearing out my garden beds when I grabbed this bucket here. There's a frog statue that sits on top and it was full of water. I casually picked it up, taking the top off at the same time...... and very quickly dropped it.

I am the viper. I've come to vipe your vindows!

I've read up on the Florida snakes and have found there are only 6 dangerous snakes around. The first is the Coral snake and the rest are pit vipers. Three of those are rattlesnakes and the last two are the Cottonmouth and the Copperhead. There are two ways to tell if you are looking at a pit viper. One is to look for the diamond shaped head and another is see if his eyes have slit pupils.  The problem is that there is a non venomous snake here called a Water Snake that looks just like a Cottonmouth. When he's threatened he will flatten his head out and as you can see above, he's got that large triangular head. Hmmmm....

So, we killed the bastage. On closer inspection we can see he also has round pupils.... so, he is the innocent Water Snake. It's probably for the better considering you really shouldn't be getting that close to a snake to check out his eyes before you whack him with a shovel. 

Anyway, here's a nice shot from the other day right after it rained.

And another dragonfly...

Now back to the injured little baby turtle... you can see a flap of skin where his eye should be. After getting a better look at him in the aquarium I think the eye is still there. His left hind leg is completely gone all the way up to his shell and the front one is just missing his claws. I think he has a bit of his tail bitten off also.

I haven't seen him eat anything yet. I put some sweet potato in there today but all he did was sit on it. 

I have emailed a turtle rescue group hoping to at least get some advice on what to do for him, but I've not heard back from them yet. We'll see how he does the next few days.....

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~~~~~~UPDATED~~~~~~

It's not good news. The little guy didn't make it. I found him dead this morning. We tried......

I asked Mike what to do with him and he suggested to just bury him somewhere in the back yard. I kind of rankled at that because I hate to see things go to waste. He could have been a good meal for the vultures like we left out for the snakes above. (Vultures gotta eat, too!) There was no way I was going to throw him back into the pond where those cannibalistic soft shells could have another go at him. So I figured a way I could make use for him anyway.

I buried him and planted a baby pine tree over him. I'd had this tree growing in a pot for a while and it was time to plant it permanently anyway. He will make useful fertilizer for our new "Turtle Pine Tree."

RIP little baby injured turtle...