I have a friend with a turtle that she kind of neglects, and I wish I knew how to make it better. Advice? (Pics)
This is Gamera.
Now let me start by saying I know next to nothing about turtles.
What I can tell you is that she is probably around 10 years old. My friend has had her since baby-turtlehood. She is a good turtle, as far as I can tell. She sleeps a lot, and she crawls toward you when she is curious or wants food. There are cats in the house and they all get along with her.
The part that makes me sad is that my friend neglects this turtle in a big way. I actually lived in the house for a year. The turtle just wanders the first floor with no habitat of her own. She crawls into corners or partially under furniture or other things a lot, and seemingly naps there. She gets fed turtle food once a day which is thrown into a bowl of water.
I don't really know what kind of playful interaction turtles and humans have, but there's basically none going on. The turtle is more or less a moving piece of furniture that she's used to having around. The verbal interactions are pretty much limited to frustration when the turtle is in the way or a quick hello.
The turtle makes it's mess wherever it happens to be at the time, which I've always found kind of repulsive. She does have an aquarium that in my opinion can't possibly be the right size for a turtle this large.
The whole thing is just depressing, but realistically speaking just in terms of LEGALLY, she isn't outwardly abusing the animal and it gets fed... but I just wish she would concede she doesn't care enough about the creature to interact with it or give it anything more than basic survival.
Can anyone offer me any advice or suggestions on what I could do short of kidnapping the turtle and taking it to some kind of shelter? :(
Posted Aug 14, 2017, 7:10 PM UTC