Again — a note on buying Fishmarket Turtles

[Steve]

Steve

February 22, 2007 at 3:15 pm #24573

I know I mentioned this before but I just want to point it out again as I lost an animal today. I do rehab work and have extensive experience in dealing with these traumatize animals. While I am not telling anyone NOT to rescue one it is still adviseable to purchase captive bred animals because they are very generally a better option in terms of health and hardiness. The turtle I lost (a chinese softshell) I have been working with for about a year now. Basically her immune system was shot from the horrid conditions she was in before I picked her up. It has been an up and down roller coaster of scud, fungus, eating, not eating, septicemia. You name it. She was doing very well and then quite suddenly stopped eating and began getting fungal infection and rot spots on her shell AGAIN.. This time is was too much for her and poor Nessie finally gave out. I take this sort of thing in stride cuz if you don’t you shouldn’t do rehab. I just wanted to point it out again to make folks see that if you do take on this admirable challenge just be aware of the time, money and effort you have to put into getting many of these animals on their feet and NEVER assume you are out of the woods in terms of illness. They can turn around months later and JUST LIKE THAT. Steve

[Author]

Posts