Real Life Wildlife Rescue!!!!

Okay, maybe the title is just a little sensationalized, but I did save a turtle's life yesterday at here work. I work maintenance at a power plant, and we have a large pond that our circulating water pumps take a suction on to send it in the plant to cool equipment. Well the five of them draw something like half a million gallons a minute, so the flow is pretty strong at some points. We were working out where the water goes through the screens, and notice something in the water. It was an (I think) Eastern Box turtle trying to get out of the flow, but whenever he could make an advance, he ended up right back into a strong current and going closer to the intake. I grabbed a rake that had been left out and duct taped it to a pole so I could reach him, got the rake out behind him, and under then as he tried to dive to escape being helped, and brought him over to land where I could reach him. Took him out of the area and put him on the beach on the real lake (Erie) and watched him scurry off, after checking that I had cleared away. You know, he didn't even turn and say 'Thanks', but it felt pretty good anyway

Good Job! :clap:

Aw, that was nice of you. :)
That one will probably go on to breed next year, and you'll be the cause of that.

Good for you!!! It's always worth that extra effort to help a wild critter out and that point about it being able to go on and breed one day is a good one.


~~Jo~~

Great Job !!
Glad to hear the little booger was rescued. I'm sure he was happy about it too.
Rusty

I've got a turtle rescue story too.

;)

A few years ago, my sister, niece & I went to a local pond to see fireworks from a nearby baseball field. People were there fishing, & we walked around for a little while. We came across some guy who either found a turtle w/a fishhook in its mouth, or did it himself.

To make a long story short, I held the turtle as the guy worked the hook out w/a pair of pliers. It came out fine, & the poor turtle started bleeding. The only thing we could really do was to put it back in the water, so that's exactly what we did.

Hopefully it lived, & healed fine from the trauma.