Turtle Rescue

Sometimes you just get lucky.

I don't go out by the compost piles very often during the course of any average week, but I needed to take something out there yesterday morning.  I had started to walk away when something caught my eye - a bit of movement.

There was this poor female box turtle, firmly caught in the open hole of a cinder block.  Her shell was pretty scuffed, so it looked like she'd been there for a fairly long period of time, scrabbling uselessly, trying to get out.

How unfair that she could not make a noise to attract my attention!  (I've never consciously thought about turtles' silence before, but somehow it seems tragic in this situation.)

The poor thing was stressed enough that she didn't withdraw into her shell when I picked her up.   In fact, she didn't withdraw into her shell until I picked her back up, after I'd put her down, to take a photo of her underside.

She's a big box turtle - and I honestly wonder how in the world she got herself in that predicament.  I think she was lucky to be tail down, not head down, in the hole.

I hope she's none the worse for her adventure and that she was able to get food and water without issue.

Now I've got to fill in those holes so this doesn't happen again.  I checked the area today and will continue to do so every day until we get the holes filled.  The compost piles, rimmed by these cinder blocks, have been in place since shortly after we moved here over 2 years ago, with no prior problems.  Funny - I never would have thought of them as being dangerous to much of anybody or anything....