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Should I release my turtles to this one pond in my community park2007-11-24 2:02:44

I have 2 two-year-old red slider turtles and one 3 inches long larger red slider turtles. I don't have the money to buy UVA/UVB lamp nor a larger tank and filter for them. I am rarely home (only once a week) and so I can only feed them once a week.

I've been thinking releasing them to this one pond in my community's park. It's big with ducks and other red slider turtles too (quite a lot of them). I am not sure if there's food for the turltes to eat (i didn't see any fish). The water there is always green and sometimes it doesn't seem to be that clean.

Will they be able to survive? Can they get disease from those ducks? Should I release them? Please give advice.

Answers:

You might try calling up a local zoo. Chances are, if they won't take them themselves, they'll know of someone who can.

As has been said, pets usually don't fare well when released into the wild, and it's a much safer bet to try and get them to someone who's going to take care of them.

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Long-term captive reptiles often do not do well when released into an unfamiliar environment.

However, the way you're going you're going to kill them anyway, so I can't see that it would do much harm . outside of the possibility of introducing a pathogen that kills all the other turtles in the pond.

Consider offering them up for adoption by someone who has the time & experience to properly care for them.

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that sounds like a good place for them, they won't catch anything from the ducks and there will be plenty of bugs, etc that fall into the water