• Question: whats your best sea turtle, terrapin, or just a tortoise???? x

    Asked by lindseymerrygold to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 20 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      ooo that is such a toughie.. maybe sea turtle so I can swim in the sea with them too 🙂
      But I used to have pet tortoise they were really cute 🙂

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Aaaaah that’s difficult. But I would have to say, the sea turtle – because I worked in Cyprus trying to protect them! For one summer, I patrolled beaches where loggerhead turtles had laid their eggs in nests. I had to make sure that the nests were safe and that the baby turtles made it to sea OK after hatching.

      I’ve also seen leatherback turtles, in Trinidad and Tobago (islands in the Caribbean)! They’re enormous! There’s a model leatherback turtle in the museum where I work (I posted a video of the museum here if you want to see it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqR7g1PzPEs ) 🙂

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      I like tortoises! There is a big one in our local pet shop called Hercules – he is enormous and is about 70 years old I think. They let him wander around the shop and my son loves following him!

    • Photo: Nicolas Biber

      Nicolas Biber answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Much to my embarrassment I had to look up terrapin … But in my defense I am not a native speaker, and as far as I know all three are called the same in German and French. However, what kind of a biologist am I?!
      Once again, I don’t have a favorite, they are all really cool, and they all deserve a place on earth to be. terrapins tend to become an ecological problem on European mainland. People buy the American terrapins as pets, and when they grow too big they just release them. This endangers our local native terrapin populations. My grandma has always had tortoises, and I think they’re really cool 🙂 One of them keeps escaping! Sea turtles are really impressive, and I love diving and snorkeling with them.

    • Photo: Christine Switzer

      Christine Switzer answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      That’s too tough of a decision! They are both such lovely animals.

      I have a special place in my heart for the American turtles. On the canoe trips I used to do when I lived in the USA, we would see lots of turtles and occasionally had to rescue them. Sometimes the people who fish those rivers get really lazy about how they fish and just hang lines from tree branches. They are trying for catfish or trout but end up catching turtles or or debris just as often. We rescued one turtle that had four fish hooks caught in his shell. Poor thing! We were able to free three of the four hooks but we just had to trim the last one down as much as possible and hope for the best.

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