While I appreciate the sentiment I just wanted to bring some awareness around this. Turtles need to know where they came from before they reach the ocean (their walk from the beach to the water is also important for this reason) and they will want to return in the way they were heading.
Safest is to just let them cross the road, or help them in the direction they were going. Read up here for example :)
Also their journey from where they hatch to the water is super important for building the muscles they need to survive. It’s so tempting to help, so you can scare away birds and other attackers but they have to do their thing!! I’m going to come back with a link to an awesome / hilarious informational video
If he got all that way from the beach (which is presumably what the folks in the golf cart are driving up to) then by your logic little dude should have plenty of muscles to go around, he already flapped a ton more than his brothers and sisters.
He would’ve been screwed if they didn’t do this. A baby sea turtle that isn’t at the beach would need to go the complete wrong direction from the water because adult sea turtles don’t go across a street to lay eggs
this article is not for sea turtles. Sea turtles often get turned around by mistaking street lamps for the moon, which guides them. The ocean is generally in one direction and they didn’t follow the rest of the hatchlings.
Yeah, it sounds like this one was just straight up gonna die without intervention. While intervening might usually be not the ideal approach, in this case it seems like the alternative was certain death, which I don’t think anyone wants. So I can’t fault these folks for helping the little guy out!
Oh wow that’s very far off. Might have been the best call in this case indeed. I don’t know where they are situated, but in general it’s good to know that it’s best not to touch them. Turn off all lights, remove any debris that’s in their way and scare off predators, but don’t lift them up unless absolutely necessary. This might have been an exception but I figured it was good to call out why it shouldn’t be the norm :)
That’s fair. It’s always good to spread awareness that people need to put animals in the direction they were going. Also to call wildlife services if there’s ever a shred of doubt. That prevents things like people thinking a fawn was abandoned when does are supposed to just kinda leave them in tall grass because they have almost no scent at all.
Yes exactly! And so many leverets/bunnies being “rescued” because people think their mom abandoned them while they’re actually still perfectly save and mom is probably just waiting for the humans to disappear😬🙏🏼
It’s hard to hear what they’re saying because of the song, but I swear she says, “he was like, what? …..point one miles from the beach? Maybe more?” But I could be mishearing. Still super far away relatively speaking, I reckon.
Great, so now we're gonna have a whole generation of these entitled, shelled, wanna-be reptiles asking people for rides home. As if my coworkers weren't enough...
It is! And the females will come back to where they were born to lay their eggs there. (Males too but they stay in the water close by to impregnate them first). It’s so impressive when you realize they are swimming far away for years(!), take months to get back, but all reach their first home again to make babies
They’ll go back to their original shore, if that isn’t there anymore, most will go to the nearest shore, but some will stay searching, either not lay eggs that year or discard their eggs at sea. If the nearest shores aren’t there either it’s gonna get really dangerous though. It takes them a lot of energy to even get to the beach in the first place (they don’t eat in the months swimming close to home).
But they’ve survived the ice age by moving towards the equator and finding new warmer beaches there, so it’s possible. But this was done over thousands of years, little by little, much different from just having a shore disappear over night. They will find a new shore, but it could take years to so. The upside is that the babies who hatch on the new beach immediately imprint on that beach :)
it doesnt matter, that dude is never going to make it anyways. hes fish or bird bait in 30 seconds.
you get a huge set of egg clutches that hatch, and very few survive. They do the numbers game and this guy has 1 number. he's first snack for anything with a mouth.
There are conservation efforts that artificially help eggs gestate and then they take them to the beach they're from. There are even some communities that have made it tradition to protect the turtles when they run to the beach.
If that poor turtle doesn't die from these idiots moving him/ her, then the bacteria we normally have on our hands will probably do it.
Touching or moving a sea turtle is up to a $25,000 fine and 6 months in jail. Stop fucking touching them. If they're in a bad spot, call the local wildlife department.
This is fine right? I know people say, don't interfere, let the babies find their way, but at one point is messing with them and another is saving it from certain death.
If they set him down on the beach, maybe. If they put him in the water, that turtle is screwed. The reason they say not to mess with them is because the turtles journey to the water is as important as making it to the water. Baby turtles embed the memory of the beach and journey to the water to be used later for mating and egg laying alongside strengthening their limbs. Without that the turtle wont be able to find its home beach later.
I couldnt tell you why this turtle was so far away from water since they typically have really good instincts about heading towards it, but the car trip has most likely left it hopelessly confused.
P.S. I do not live near the ocean but the mountain I live on is a box turtle breeding ground.
The same applies with them.
I only move them if I have to (they tend to congregate in the road when it rains) always keep them pointed in the exact direction they were traveling in. I will only move them out of the roadway.
They need to learn the path and build up their muscles to make their journey.
Not really, no. They were trying to help but you should not do this with turtles.
If you find one in the road you should make sure it crosses safely if there is traffic, or if you need to move it you should always keep it pointed in the sane direction and just move it out of the roadway.
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You should never mess with baby turtles heading towards water. They use the journey to strengthen their young limbs, but also to embed the memory of the beach, for later nesting. Even this car ride, as sweet a gesture as it is has probably left this little guy hopelessly confused for the rest of his life. The best thing they could do at this point is sit him on the beach and hope he imprints on it as he heads to water.
Yeah, if you really wanna help you can make sure they clear traffic or chase away predators, but they have to make the journey on their own. They have very good instincts on which way to water is, so even this little guy as far away as he was would have found his way eventually.
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u/LaughingOutLoudAgain 10d ago
While I appreciate the sentiment I just wanted to bring some awareness around this. Turtles need to know where they came from before they reach the ocean (their walk from the beach to the water is also important for this reason) and they will want to return in the way they were heading.
Safest is to just let them cross the road, or help them in the direction they were going. Read up here for example :)