:)

just so we are clear..tortoises and turtles are different.

tortoises are cool pets. love to get a sulcata, but i dont have the energy.

i have my eye out for a decent pair of leopards. i can keep them indoors.

'Sposedly an endangered species, I heard you can get in lots O'trouble if you don't have permits or are not treating them the way the BLM or fish and game like.

These were bread in captivity with all the right permits. About the only thing you cant do is sell them or release them in the wild.

BTW - I don't think endangered, but threatened. But I could be wrong.

Yer prolly right, it was something like that.

friend of mine caught an 80lb one yesterday. turned it over to an aquarium/zoo

About ten years ago we saw turtles on the road around here everyplace. It lasted about 2 weeks. The carnage was awful, and I probably picked up a dozen on the route to work in that time. In the 8 years before and 10 years since, I've probably seen one on that route. I don't know what the deal was. It was like they all got the call from the mothership and started walking to the rendezvous point like zombies.

like many animals, they have preferred pathways, even trails, they use

in some places people have put in special "underpasses" to avoid the carnage - Florida was at the forefront for such crossings a few years ago

Many more years ago than that, driving through Missouri on the way to CA, daylight, farmland, before interstate hwys, midweek and the only car on whatever 65 mph, 2 lane state highway it was, probably doing at least 65, wife napping in the passenger seat of the van.

Noticed a discoloration of the asphalt up ahead, braked to probably 45 and the van began sliding as it turned out that thousands and thousands of tortoises the size of a...cut down, little kid's crash helmets? were crossing the road!

The crunching, popping sounds were sickening. I got the van down to about 25 and, seeing the color change back to asphalt not far ahead, so I drove through them. Or stop In their midst and wait until the migration, or whatever, was over.

But, there was no sign of that happening soon from the looks of the undiminished numbers of tortoises entering the road. And we both felt like we we'd been thrust into a horrifying Hitchcock movie so I drove through them. Very sad, but...

Had tortoises in OH and PA when I was a kid, but never saw anything like this!

Do tortoises migrate?

Why does a tortoise cross the road?

Seriously, all the above is true and you're the first person I've run accross who knows what I'm talking about.

migrate? that is a sort of technical term -- they definitely move around to water sources, etc.

i like turtles.

I ran over one when I was in my teens thinking it was a just debris, since then I've saved about 20..Some have been mean and scary, but they were on a certain death wish without a LiL help..

Migration?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1339611263.jpg

I have no idea what you're talking about, so here's a turtle with a bunny on it's head!

http://1funny.com/wp-content/uploads...n-a-turtle.jpg

Tons of box turtles here...there are times, usually after a few days of rain in the Spring, when the turtles hit the roads to get warm and dry. I always stop and put them on the side of the road the seem to be headed in.

Snapping Turtles, Terrapins, are a different deal, think Jurassic Park. They are not to be f'ed with. They will look you right in the eye.

They love to nest in the manure piles I tend on the farm. I don't let them.

ok, here is my true story re Snapping Turtles:

as a kid, I lived in a swamp (a subdivision in an area of BTR, Louisiana called "Broadmoor" and it literally was a broad moor)

as kids we rustled around the whole area thru the mud, built rafts to cross the wetter parts, etc.

one day we found this really neat turtle! it was big too! we split into 2 groups - one group to watch the big turtle and keep it from running away, and the other group to go fetch the very biggest red wagon in the neighborhood

we put the big turtle in the red wagon - it just barely fit and kida hung over the sides, since it was so big

then, being kids, we teased it with sticks

suddenly, with blinding speed it shot its head out and bit one of the sticks - it snapped the stick in half even though it was a nice strong broom stick

Snapping Turtle

we did NOT tell any parents

Lmfao!

I prefer tortoises......my little red foot is a hoot and I just added a tree frog to his vivarium.

Here's a local Diamondback Terrapin heading back into the mangroves....

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...78407755_n.jpg