A visit from a wild Thai turtle

 

A strange thing happened over the last few days that I'll pass on:  a relatively "wild" turtle visited us.  He lived at our house for a few days (not captive, but in the yard and garden areas), then I took him to a recovery program animal hospital for a checkup and relocation to a reserve.  He really could be female, that's just how I think of him.  It turned out that he is "Thai," a variety that is found in neighboring countries but centered in Thailand for distribution with a Thai city as part of his name (Malayemys Khoratensis).  This some may find interesting:  Integrative Taxonomy of Southeast Asian Snail-Eating Turtles

Morphological differences in shell characteristics and head colouration patterns of Malayemys khoratensis (orange), Malayemys macrocephala (blue), Malayemys subtrijuga (green).

Turtles aren't so unusual where we live.  A lot of turtles, fish, and water monitor lizards live in a canal not far from our house (maybe 80 meters away, so not that close either).  They tend to not leave that water area.  We first met him when we returned to the house late on a Sunday, when he became jammed in the gate mechanism, from trying to crawl through a very narrow passageway.  We put him in a small tub to take to the vet for a checkup, since he looked a little roughed up by that, with his shell notched and scratched.  He made it out of that shallow tub; he's not bad at climbing.  Then I kept seeing him over the next couple of days but he looked fine, seemingly moving quite well for a turtle.

he wasn't into being fed

That led to me asking around in online groups about what to do with him.  The idea of just letting him live at the house sounded appealing, but that's only if it seemed a suitable environment for him, and we didn't know what he would eat.  I kept offering him food, giving him vegetables, tomkatsu, dried fish, and cat food, but it was hard to know if he was eating any of it, especially since he wasn't in any confined area.  The house, yards, and gardens are fenced, so he probably couldn't leave, but he wasn't really in captivity either.  He had walked in on his own but it wasn't easy to walk back out.

That led to a critical finding and twist:  he's an aquatic turtle that eats only aquatic snails, so he was starving to death.  The race was on to find him again and get him safely relocated.  Then I was also concerned that maybe the scratches on his shell weren't so minor; I wouldn't be a good judge of that.  A friend who had turtles before mentioned that he could get an infection after returning to the water if his shell integrity wasn't complete.  I reached out to three different turtle experts online, but in the end someone needed to get a look at him to make a complete call.  I took him to the local (Bangkok) Chulalongkorn Aquatic Animal Disease Research Center, or VMARC.

In the end it turned out that he was fine.  They were going to give him a complete checkup, get him fed and re-hydrated, and put him through a de-worming treatment, then release him at a reserve outside the city.  That seemed sad, that he wouldn't return to his home canal.  But then the water being a bit dirty there had caused him an earlier case of shell rot, and the road beside that canal was a significant risk to him, and those water monitor lizards eat turtles.  It was for the best.

his original home, where go to feed bread to the fish and birds

In finding him stuck in the gate, and then stuck in a house fence, I had rescued him twice in just over 3 days.  This wasn't the right place for him, even though he did come to the right place to be relocated.  

saying goodbye to "turtely," he never did get a name

The turtle experts seemed a bit suspicious of us seemingly attempting to detain a wild animal as a pet, but then he hadn't been invited any more than the squirrels who live here, who keep eating the mangoes and papaya.  It just took time to figure out what to do with him; 3 days, then on a fourth he was off to that animal rescue center.  My first guess was that he was from that canal, of course, but I couldn't even be sure that he was an aquatic turtle.  The part about him only eating aquatic snails I didn't expect.  If you Google search what turtles eat, as I did, a number of references come up that tend to not even mention that in the range of possibilities.  Most turtles seem to be omnivores, from those sources; they eat whatever they feel like eating.  There are lots of snails in our yard but it seems likely that he wouldn't eat those.

It makes you think through pet experience in general.  Of course you can tell if a cat or a dog is having a positive life experience (less so for cats, maybe), but for a pet like a turtle who knows.  Or a pet lizard or snake that you keep at home, and so on.  How would you know how happy and fulfilled they feel?  That turtle was either exploring to find food, just looking around, or panicked about getting out to support his immediate survival, and in retrospect probably the third.  He was "wild," but a turtle bred to be a pet might not be so different, beyond being a type that can eat turtle food or whatever else, vegetables and such.

We feel an attachment to the small lizards living in our house of their own accord, a theme that was also common in Hawaii (house geckos).  It's odd even considering if all really goes well for them, if they are happy, or even well-fed.  There are some insects around in the house, just maybe not enough to make for ideal conditions, and we don't try to make the insect populations thrive.

I loved swimming with the sea turtles in a swim lane in Hawaii, when I lived there during grad school.  There was no interacting with them, really, but I would swim underwater a lot of the time to check out them and the fish and coral.  Kind of a tangent, but I changed underwater swim stroke based on learning from how they did it, their slower swimming version using one flipper at a time.

there is a flag out past those reef areas to swim to, along a lane of sorts

what those looked like (photo credit)

I would like to thank Peter Brakels of the Natural Laos group for covering feedback on status so completely and quickly, which really led to speeding up resolution.  The Reptiles and Amphibians of Thailand page was an interesting reference, and they responded quickly with good advice too, but Peter helped specify exactly what that turtle was, and the critical problem with him staying in someone's yard, and where he needed to be instead.  It was great that the Chulalongkorn program was so ideal for resolving this issue, even helpful about talking through the concerns and doing an initial review of that turtle's health status through photo images.  It all worked out.  I could've just put him back in the canal but I always would've wondered if he really was fine.  And he probably would've been, based on what a specialist vet review turned up.  His shell was beat up but he was ok.

visiting a sea turtle rescue program center in Bang Saen, with a favorite cousin

It's just in my own mind, for sure, but I felt like beyond me freaking him out he might have had the sense that I really was doing my best to help him.  I think the staff at that rescue center thought it was a little strange that I had just knew that turtle for a few days and then kept asking about what would happen to him, and took a couple minutes to say goodbye to him.  On the car ride to the vet I had put him in the passenger's seat and talked through how it was all going to work out, and he really seemed to calm down, probably more from being tired of crawling laps in the cat's box, and having a rough day.  It was great having a chance to meet him, just unfortunate that it all ended up being so stressful for him.

more on that VMARC related program, but all in Thai

Later status update:

Once you turn in a turtle in to a wild animal recovery program like that one that's it, you don't go back for a visit and check on him or her.  But of course that's what we did, since Eye--my wife--was out of town when I took "him" there.  It turned out that she is female; I was mis-gendering her the whole time.  She's fine, just not exactly stress-free and happy, given the week she's had.

The vet and admin staff were nice to make an exception about visitation, after my wife explained those circumstances, and her concern.  It turned out that she's 4 or 5 years old, nearly completely mature, but a bit roughed up from prior experiences.  She can live to be 30 or so, if life gets easier for her, as it should.  That vet said that at least some of the shell damage occurred prior to it getting caught in that gate opening mechanism, if not all of it, since it has healed.  I really thought that notch was from that, but maybe not.

We asked about her diet, if she's eating ok, and they have been feeding her but she's not eating much yet, due to the stress and transition.  At least she should be on the path to re-adjusting, and they should be able to get her stable and healthy before re-release into a reserve.

I want to offer a guess about whether she recognized us, and how she reacted (really me; I spent a few days talking to her, kind of sporadically since I would only see her out walking a couple times a day, and hidden for the rest).  It's probably a stupid thing to talk about; I can't "read" a turtle, and if she could recognize me it would remind her of awful experiences.  She did put her head out and look around a good bit while we talked to the vet though, which I took as affirmation that she wasn't so uncomfortable.  Of course I talked to her, and told her everything would be fine, and that she needed to relax and to eat.  I suppose all of that was more for me than her.

This time I never will see her again.  I'm happy that we crossed paths so that she could move on to a better place for her, and to where turtle specialists could make sure that she is fine during the transition.