Yesterday was the last day of session one for my kid class. The last day is parent day and show & tell day. Wednesday we finished up the kid's pet care booklets and let them take them home.
Yesterday one of the mothers came up to ask me about feeding box turtles because the caresheet they were given was written by Melissa Kaplan and it contradicts what the woman's neighbor says about box turtles. Like too many people the mom who spoke to me has one or two box turtles in the backyard.
The mom just couldn't get over the idea that I had told the kids that we don't feed cat food and iceberg lettuce to box turtles.
She told me her neighbor has 30 something box turtles and he told her it's ok to feed them anything, he feeds his cat food and leftovers from the table like mac & cheese because hey they'll eat anything.
::::faints::::

I told her that ya know kids like to eat chocolate but we wouldn't want them to eat it all the time. I told her dairy products are even worse than cat food.
OH MY GOD there are too many people in this town keeping them in the backyard.. why can't they do a little research if they're going to keep 30 something turtles? I wonder how many of this idiotic neighbor's turtles die every year? He's probably one of those people who keeps every one he finds where ever he finds it.
Macaroni & cheese, now I am the one who can't get over it.

The only good news about this is that the mom had already read the MK caresheet so maybe she'll pay attention & start feeding hers the right way.
There is no law here that prevents people from keeping them in the backyard so there's nothing I can do but keep trying to make an impression on these kids.
Arrgggh it's frustrating sometimes!
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PHRatz

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