Quote Originally Posted by blackcrystal22 View Post
You could come up here and release them all in Illinois. We wouldn't mind. They're native up here anyway.

Even though they're invasive, I'm not sure how effective they are against the other wildlife. This is a single pond were talking about, and that turtle is a couple years old. If your still seeing populations of painted, musks, and spotteds then I wouldn't be too concerned. It's possible the person who released it released two, because often, people buy them in pairs.

Because they are native to the US, and up here in IL we have some small species of turtles like painted as well, I don't think they'd be severely impacting on the environment, but hey, I could be wrong.
Moving an animal a few states in comparison to moving one across continents just seems like a bit of a difference to me.
They are only in one isolated pond and from what I can tell shes pretty old. My reasearch is telling me that females reach maturity at 5 years and 5 inches. Currently shes 12" and weighs 5 1/2 pounds. So who knows how long shes been there, she could be older then me for all i know (17). I'm not sure how they would effect the ecosystem and other turtle but all the years I've been to that pond I've never seen a painted turtle while just a few minute walk to another pond theres tons of them, I'm not saying the sliders are the reason for this but I think its odd. This female could probably swallow a baby painted turtle whole if she wanted to! I mean painted turtles in states with sliders have evolved to co-exist with them, the painteds up here have not so I think thats probably the difference.