Tag: red eared sliders

@SammyKaep7 is A PSA for Niners and Ravens fans alike … who like tortoises and turtles

 we here at tort-time work to spread the love… but we have opinions and this is ours (though we can all get along regardless on monday right? 🙂 ) 

 We  may or may not be annoyed that the Ravens beat the patriots 😉 We may or may not wish we lived on the west coast. We may or may not have personal football related leanings (we don’t hide it.. see last year’s Superbowl post). In this case, however, our support of the 49ers is particularly relevant (though the whole Pats thing really reinforced our opinion haha).  

You all know the sad, yet inspiring, story of Audrey R. Slider who lived in a bucket and because of the incredible work of @littleresq is now educating the world about the importance of proper care and research before adoption. Many other red eared sliders end up even less lucky… abandoned, killed, dying from this kind of poor care / abuse before any rescue is even possible. RES’s make up a large portion of turtle and tortoise rescue population. People don’t realize what their getting into, even with the best intentions. 

Sulcata tortoises are in a similar place. At birth they are small as a quarter, inconspicuous in a way, adorable and all too often sold in pet stores. All too often people who adopt them don’t realize that, sooner than later, this little quarter size tortoise will turn into a 100+ pound beauty. So? They get dumped, returned to pet stores, put in the wild (sometimes contaminating other wild turlte/tortoise populations that are already threatened). These animals are incredible but what people forget is that they also require the same space and light and proper diet any other tortoise does…only if you think about it proportionally? Thats a whole lot of everything and results in too many abandoned tortoises and very full rescues. 

Its sad that every species of tortoises and turtles has so much against it. Being inhumanely removed from habitats  being buried to death during urbanisation, being deliberately hit by people because.. well I still don’t have any idea what to say about that one.. They are up against a lot but in general they persevere. 

Incredible people are out there. Folks at @littleresq ( http://www.littleresq.net/ ), The Long Island Turtle Rescue ( http://turtlerescues.com/ ), Turtle Rescue USA ( http://www.turtlerescueusa.com/wordpress/?page_id=4) and so many more, do all they can to help our shelled friends.. but they can’t do it all. Rescues get full, they cost money. 

So, what does this have to do with the Superbowl? Well, this long rant is to say that..some positive media showing a well cared for adult tortoise is freaking awesome!  People have been writing articles about how Kaepernick showing off his tortoise is about being hip, or cause he’s weird, and whatever the hell else these people are saying. Yeah I understand why people are upset about how he came to play this year. Hate the Niners etc… In the end? I am so excited to see a story about the superbowl that involves the story of a boy getting a small tortoise at 10 years old and raising it properly and heading to the superbowl while also showing off the 115 lb tortoise that he loves to this day. you know what? I think thats cool. hip even. I hope it becomes trendy to care for your animals properly or at the very least? shows a lot of people that don’t know what their getting into what adopting a sulcata is really about. Cause its not hip to adopt a tortoise you know nothing about and, when you realize its growing bigger than you thought, you dump it somewhere or keep it in a home it barely fits in. Thats not cool. 

So thanks sammy! Thank Sammy & Colin for spreading the love! And good luck tonight!