Box turtle business

If you lost a box turtle, Debbie Willitts and her children, Sean and Gabriel, found it.

The turtle was wandering along the banks of Wychus (Squaw) Creek. If someone turned it loose because they felt sorry for it in captivity, or got tired of caring for it, that was a really big “no, no.” Box turtles are not native to Central Oregon; therefore, if the Willitts children hadn’t found the turtle there’s a good chance it would never have made it though the winter.

Debbie called me to tell me her children’s newly acquired pet is a Malayan box turtle (Cuora amboinensis), commonly referred to in the pet trade as the “Ambo.” It is also the most common hard-shelled chelonian species found in the food and medicinal markets of Southern China.

After Debbie’s call, I turned to my favorite site for additional information — Google, what else — and found http://www.chelonia.org/Articles/Camboinensiscare.htm, where the authors state:

“If at all possible, a captive born specimen should be sought out rather than an animal from the wild as the specimens originating in the food markets are without exception very heavily stressed, parisitized, dehydrated, and in need of immediate medical care by a veterinarian familiar with Asian market chelonia.”

Gabriel and Sean happened to come upon the bedraggled box turtle while playing in a copse of alder along the bank of the creek they call “The Fort.” Gabriel spotted an interesting “rock” he was curious about, but when he picked it up a head came poking out.

Like most people who have pets, Gabriel and Sean gave theirs a name. You have to admit Cuora amboinensis is a big mouthful for an adult, let alone a youngster, so they named their turtle “Volcom,” after their favorite snowboard.

I wish you could see all the TLC the Willitts’ Family has gone to to insure their turtle has a happy, healthy home. They set up a 50-gallon aquarium with all the environmental components suggested for keeping Volcom healthy and happy. If he (and it is a “he”) could smile and sing, Volcom would be grinning from ear to ear, singing “Home on the Range.” On the other hand, his new home is so plush, perhaps he thinks he’s died and gone to Heaven.

Feeding Volcom opened an interesting discussion about the Willitts’ children’s definition of a “pet.” They have a lovely “pet” goldfish in an attractive aquarium in another part of their home, but in Volcom’s warm pool are several small goldfish that this particular box turtle dines on when hungry.

I can remember doing that when I was about the same age when I found someone’s small pet alligator in my favorite turtle pond out behind the farm where I was raised in Connecticut. Unfortunately, my newly acquired pet only lived for two days.

Lamentably, that’s a common fate of great many turtles, tortoises and other reptiles and amphibians in captivity; they either die, escape or are turned loose.

In the instance of turtles and tortoises native to North America, these “hot-house” reptiles sometimes acquire diseases, have been on the dole so long they have forgotten how to forage on their own, or never learned it in the first place.

Really exotic turtles, such as the Maylan species the Willitts Family has fallen heir to, are found in humid jungles and warm ponds and rivers along the Equator, not in cold, clear mountain streams like Wychus Creek.

If you tire of caring for any reptile or amphibian the worst thing you can do is turn it loose in the wild; the best solution is to take it a pet store and ask them to find a new home for it.