Well, it started with a box turtle named Felicity. She belonged to some friends of mine, who had received her from a friend of THEIRS when he moved out of state.
He had found her wandering in the street one day, and picked her up and took her home. Eventually he gave her to these other people, and they kept her on a shelf. Yes, on a shelf. They kept her on a shelf, with books, because she almost never moved. And they thought that was totally normal. They never bothered to do any research on how to care for a turtle. They fed her about every two weeks, and the only food they ever gave her was strawberry. She ate the strawberries, but with no heat not light I am amazed that she stayed alive, and she lived that way for YEARS.
I have always been an animal lover, and at that time I already had my snake. I was really distressed by the condition in which this turtle was being kept. I asked a local reptile breeder what a box turtle should eat, and he said nightcrawlers were a good first step. So I bought some nightcrawlers, and went to my friends' house and dropped them off. I suggested they offer them to the turtle. She ate them up like crazy and they were HORRIFIED that this sweet little creature could be a carnivore... then they put her back on the shelf.
They had dropped little hints that I should take the turtle, because she became active when I was around (and I think that deep inside they knew that they were doing a bad job), and so I did some research on how to care for a turtle, assembled my necessities, and called one day to say "I am coming to get the turtle." I took her home with me and straight to the vet. She was vitamin A deficient, calcium deficient, and had some intestinal parasites. I nursed her back to health, giving here cod liver oil to boost her vitamin A, varying her foods (she was a very picky eater) and got to know her. She totally blossomed; within 2 weeks she went from a fearful creature that never moved to an active and friendly turtle who would climb your foot for attention and stomp on her water dish, to make it clank, when she wanted to soak.
That was the beginning... some months later I was in the local reptile store and I ran into my vet. We were chatting about Felicity and the store's new owner said "You rehab box turtles? That's really hard! If I gave you these three turtles, could you get them back to health?" and he gave me three sick boxies. He had just bought the store and found these three sick turtles, 2 ornates and one 3-toed, being neglected in a back room. One of those was Rex, who is out in my backyard right now
I took them home and my then-BF and I nursed two back to health... one, the sickest, held on for months and started to recover, but then he suddenly went downhill and died. It was devastating.
So anyway, I started helping sick reptiles, and people knew me, and so they started bringing them to me or calling me. Word got around (people still come up to me and say "Are you the reptile girl?") Most of them I nursed back to health and then rehomed. All of my spare income went to vet bills and reptile care. I ordered supplies mail-order, including crickets by the thousand.
Felicity died in 2000. I don't know why. She seemed to be relatively young, but she was very wise, and maybe she was much older than we knew; maybe her years of neglect and mistreatment shortened her life span. I still miss her.
I still try to help reptiles by educating people, and by connecting good people who want herps with people who want to give them away. I don't take them in anymore, though, because I just haven't the energy (or the money.) In fact, I gave up three of my personal box turtles for adoption in 2003, because I was so sick that I could not care for them. They were juveniles that I had adopted as hatchlings back in 1998 and I had never really bonded with them as I had with other turtles, and now they have better homes.
I love animals, but reptiles, I think, not only get a bad rap but are often neglected or abused. That's why my energy started going in that direction. Plus, I just love them. I am not a collector: they are unique and special individuals to me. I've been rewarded with great relationships with some wonderful critters.
Wow, that was long-winded. But that's how you go about rescuing reptiles
Thanks for the welcome!
I used to be a reptile expert. Now I'm just an old turtle lover.
