I am looking for some advice about a situation. I am a reptile rehabilitator in North Carolina. There is someone in our rehab group who used to have his reptile rehab permit, but he let it expire. In his possession are 4 turtles (2 box turtles and 2 red eared sliders) and 1 hognose snake. He is having some financial trouble now and no longer has the money to care for these animals. He is actually feeding the turtles whatever scraps are leftover from his dinner! He also has all 4 turtles in the same container with a water dish and he just throws his scraps of food in there whenever it is convienent. One of the red-eared sliders is very large and I am sure it eats what food he throws in there. He has the small container with the snake in it on a small shelf and the turtles are sitting on the floor below that, all of them sharing one light. Here is my problem, we are trying to get him to give up these reptiles willingly, but he refuses and does not see what he is doing wrong. Short of going to his apartment and taking the animals, we are at a loss of what to do. I am wondering if anyone knows of any laws in North Carolina that he may be in violation of? I have searched and technically he is within the legal limit of having up to 5 reptiles in his possession without a permit. We know that the more time that goes by these animals continue to suffer and we are trying to act quickly, but we hit a roadblock when he refused to cooperate.

I would like to thank anyone who can offer some advice!!!

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