Yertle the Turtle

This semester I joined the Wildlife Team at my school.  This is a designated, committed group of students who care for all the sick and injured wildlife that are dropped off at the school. This includes birds, turtles, etc.  The neat thing about it is that you actually get to manage cases as a student (since there are no owners).  I just went “On-Call” on Monday, and was assigned my first case – a Eastern Box Turtle.

You aren’t really supposed to name wildlife or even talk to them since the goal is for them to be released back into the wild.  However, my turtle has been in the exotics ward for months, so it is not likely that I will do any more damage by talking to him. This is good since I can’t seem to help myself.   In fact, he really needs to exercise and apparently hates the sound of my voice. So my talking to him really benefits him since he tries to run away from me and actually gets his daily exercise instead of just sitting on the towel starring at me :) .

He has a cracked shell and broken jaw - likely an HBC (Hit by Car), but is recovering nicely.  The staff are waiting for spring to send him to a rehabber to be released since turtles are cold blooded animals. My partner and I perform treatments on him 4 times a day – 7:30 am, noon, 3 pm, and 6 pm,  which is a lot.  We feed him through an esophageal tube, give him medicine, and injections as well as completing general husbandry tasks.

This is a great case for me.  For one, most of the cases are birds.  Birds are not my favorite patients.  The only thing I might prefer to a turtle is a bunny.  Also, even though it requires a lot of time, I like that my case requires frequent visits. I feel like he is really my patient.

I have learned a lot on this case already.  I now know how to sex a turtle, how to give an intramuscular injection to a turtle, and how to exercise a turtle to name a few things.  Did you know that in the Eastern Box Turtle Species the males have red eyes and the females have yellow eyes?  How neat is that! It is also nice that I am getting comfortable down in the teaching hospital, since that is where I will spend most of my senior year.

Hip, hip, hooray for Yertle!

*Note: I can only talk about Yertle because he is wildlife.  We are not allowed to talk about normal cases outside the hospital without owner permission.