My husband found a turtle in middle of the highway in Louisiana and is bring it home. How do I determine what type of turtle it is, what it eats, its habitat? My advise was for him was to leave it somewhere safe, but he didn't listen. Any advise you can give me will be helpful.

Thank you.

Leslee

You were right about leaving the turtle. You husband could take him to the closest lake and let him go. In my experience of finding animals and taking them in, isnt very good. sometimes the animals have parisites, or they just wont eat. You can post a pic up if you want and i might be able to identify it.

When you find a turtle on the road, you should move it off the road in the direction it was traveling. Removing a turtle is not only illegal but deprives the turtle of its home and ability to make more turtles. Turtles have a home range and given the opportunity, will do everything they can to escape and go back home.

If you post a small jpg photo of the turtle, I may be able to identify it. If you go to enature.com, you can see the turtles native to your area by putting in your zip code (or they used to have that feature). As for what it eats, see http://www.fishpondinfo.com/box.htm if it's a box turtle and http://www.fishpondinfo.com/turcare.htm if it's an aquatic turtle. Box turtles have the ability to fully close themselves into their shells via a hinged plastron (bottom shell hinge in the front). If you're in the desert, it could be a tortoise too. If you provide photos or a description, I could tell you more.

Robyn didnt you take in a baby snapping turtle?

That was different. My aunt and cousin had taken the baby snapper out of the wild unbenownst and brought it to me days later. They couldn't tell me where it came from but it was a populated area. The hatchling snapper turtle was in bad shape from lack of food and water. So, I nursed him back to health. The local wildlife rehabilitator knows almost nothing about turtles. Then, it was below freezing outside so I waited until spring to release him.

ok thats okay i guess. who would realese a turtle in the winter?