Nature Done Wright

In recent weeks, I've seen a lot of turtles on the move, including a snapping turtle dropped off at the Celery Farm after it was rescued on Route 17

Rescuing turtles is a wonderful thing, but I'd always heard that moving turtles away from where they were rescued or found was a bad idea.

I wanted to learn more. So I asked Allegra Mitchell of Conserve Wildlife Foundation for an explanation.

She writes:

Turtles that are far removed from their home ranges (especially box turtles, which have very small home ranges) may die trying to get back to their known home range, especially if they get lost along the way or run into obstacles such as roads.

Disease spread is a big concern for moving animals from one place to another, especially reptiles and amphibians that have been hit hard by certain diseases like chytrid/Bd and ranavirus.

She passed along the following graphic (above), which you can also download here.