I dont get out to herp as much as I like to so I do what I call "urban herping". We have a LOT of natural areas here in Milwaukee and a TON of parks, so turtles and frogs are plentiful and easy to find. We are also somewhere between spring 3 and 6 here in the midwest.



So a little background for giggles and then I thought we could play the old "where is it" game!



We had a blizzard on a Monday here in Milwaukee where we had almost a food of snow, by Friday it was mostly gone and in the 60's. Remember I said, we were on like out 3rd or 4th spring right now. Some of you may know I run a rescue and have for 33 years now. I get a call from a lady that pulled a bunch of "turtles" from the pond pictured here. Was there any way that she could drop them off at the rescue center! They simply could not be in the pond or they would DIE!!! I spent at least 20 minutes fighting with this woman about the fact that YES Wisconsin does have Turtles and guess what, we even have 2 native species of Rattlesnakes (she told me I was a moron with that one). I finally told her that she had to either return the animals to the park or turn them in to animal control withn 24 hours or I was turning her into the DNR. An hour later the lady posted on a facebook neighborhood group about the turtles. Complained about the "stupid" rescue person who didn't know anything about reptiles. She posted pics of a few painted turtles and one snapper. Let's just say the comments did NOT go in her favor.



She did not turn the animals into animal control. They were aware of the situation and planned to call me upon intake so I could take them back to the park. She was not happy I called the DNR on her but they did tell me she informed them she returned them to the pond and that they were no longer in her home.



The reason I did call the DNR on her is I have been monitoring a blandings in this park and well, I have not seen it pop up this year yet. Blandings are endangered here so I wanted to make sure she didn't have that in her house. It is so close to nesting season as well and there was a tight time window with weather between snow storms. And well, this was a person who did not think turtles lived native in Wisconsin I most certainly did not want her having them and legally I can not touch them because I do not have native permits.



I swear rescue can be fun!



BUT What it does make me do is drive my dog to this park regularly now to look for my blandings. So I thought I would toss up a fun one here.



Let's play the game. Can you see it? I will even give you a hint. You are looking for a painted turtle.




-----
Cindy Steinle

PHFaust

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