Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Today I saw a dead chicken neck turtle in a park pond. The thing is, the pond has dozens of Florida Cooters, YB's, and Res's. So I fed them some Wardley's Turtle Pellets and they really chomped down.

This got me to thinking. How do you think a park pond can be vamped up so that these turtles have a better chance of survival? Right now, I think, they feed on bread people toss in there for the myriads of ducks.

I know too, that the Florida Cooter is a vegetarian. What kind of acquatic plants would you suggest? How would you help restore it to their natural advantage?

You can't. You have to figure many of these animals have been dumped there. The park is a public place and these animals have been used to feeding on the garbage that people toss to them. Also -- I am sure the pond residents are not just species of turtle native to you area.

The entire balance is thrown off. Planting it will not really help. It will all be mowed down by the slider and cooter species that enjoy munching vegetation.

It's very sad but these kinds of factors are why you should never release your turtles into the wild if they are not native to your area.

As far as the feeding of garbage foods like bread -- only park authorities can control that.

That's very, very, very, sad. Well, all I can say is that 1) check with the local park department (not that they'd care much if people are already throwing all sorts of crap in there) to make sure you can...2) this is the only idea I can really think of (expensive though)....if you are really despirate to help, you can go buy as much water lettuce, duckweed, and probably lily plants as you can afford (think like 100 plants). and 3) Buy a huge number of feeder guppies or goldfish and keep and breed about 10. Dump the rest into the pond (so you won't have to constantly buy fish...though this may be slow). How big are the turtles? how many?

good luck on this .... quest (?) lol XD