DAILY ITEM (Sunbury, Pennsylvania) 15 September 08 Snapper ‘retires’ to Valley farm (Susan Misur)

For such a slow-moving animal, Clem the turtle has lived a fast life.

The alligator snapping turtle has spent his 22 years bouncing from Clyde Peeling’s Reptiland to Lewisburg to a home in Mifflinburg, and now is settling permanently, back in nature in a lake on a Missouri turtle farm.

“This turtle had never seen a lake or pond before,” said Mifflinburg resident Rolf Helbig, who adopted the exotic reptile into his family’s home four years ago.

Helbig claimed Clem after Rob Mahalsky, a friend of Peeling’s, sought owners for a slew of snappers he acquired over the years.

Mahalsky took Clem to his home in Lewisburg after the hatchling lived shortly at Reptiland and was filmed in a documentary about animals hatching from eggs. In Lewisburg, Clem lived with four other turtles and, years later, was turned over to Helbig.

“I knew Rolf had worked (at Reptiand) so I knew he’d take good care of him,” said Mahalsky, who remembers Clem for his stunted tail.

After four years of scrubbing and cleaning Clem’s shell, sunning with him in the backyard, and hosing his shell to keep him cool, Helbig says the turtle bonded with his family.

“They need direct sunlight to stay healthy,” he said, explaining how the snapper lounged on the lawn during sunny days. “Then he would wander back to the garage and wait for me to put him in his tub.”

Helbig kept the turtle in a cattle water trough in his garage. It wasn’t as ideal a home as a pond, he said, but the snappers are happy to remain in one spot as long as they continue to find food.

Still, he wanted Clem to be in the wild, he said, and sought out a safe sanctuary where Clem could live out the rest of his years.

So three weeks ago, John Richards, better known to those in the animal business as The Turtle Man, received the roving reptile for release in a lake at his Loggerhead Acres Turtle Farm in Stafford, Mo.

When he decided Clem should be released into a natural habitat, Peeling advised Helbig that, due to cold winter temperatures in Pennsylvania, a snapper might not survive the season. Peeling suggested sending Clem to Richards, who has an airport account set up to transport turtles.

The hardest part, he says, was finding a driver to transport the turtle to the Philadelpha Airport. Luckily, an acquaintance of Helbig’s offered the services of her husband, Roger, to make the trip.

“I sent Clem in a damp pillow case in a Rubber Maid container with holes in it,” Helbig said. But the airport required Clem to be transported in a plywood box for his cargo flight. “Roger had to run around Philadelphia getting the right container.”

Only then was the snapper allowed to board a flight — one that took him to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport in Missouri, rather than Kansas City Airport, where Richards was expecting him to arrive.
Snapper ‘retires’ to Valley farm

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