Turtle at Jack C. Fisher Park
These pictures are of a large turtle my daughter Brittany befriended on a walk at Jack C. Fisher Park a few days ago. Unlike a lot of girls, Britt is obsessed with lizards and turtles. When she saw it, her hands went straight up in the air and she half-screamed “TURTLE!!!!!” Another daughter (Emily) wasn’t entirely sure what she’d said, but she automatically grabbed her phone to take a picture of whatever it was.
Several people have looked at the pictures and told us this was a snapping turtle, but I couldn’t say for certain. I have less than zero knowledge about turtles.
After I convinced Britt that bringing the cute turtle home was a bad idea (somehow I was able to convince her it had babies it needed to stay with them), we left it in its beautiful home and headed on our way. We did, however, hear from Brittany all day about her being “Soooooooo Cute.” Britt’s also the one who took these pictures.
As the biggest animal lover in the world, I want to remind everyone of a few things when it comes to admiring and/or photographing birds, wildlife, butterflies, and “soooo cute” turtles in the wild:
- For safety sake (your’s and the animal’s), never get too close. No picture is worth a trip to the ER.
- Always keep an eye on your kids around animals. With the insanely entertaining and popular shows on television showing human and animal interactions, they’re apt to start “acting out” what they see their heroes do each week. Bad deal.
- Never remove a wild animal from its home (unless you’re a professional or the “Turtle Man,” himself!). The animal could very well have young depending upon it. Besides, would you want to be uprooted from your home for no good reason?!
- Don’t cause undue anxiety for the animal and, whatever you do, don’t scare it. We took the pictures shown here in about 30 seconds so the turtle could get back to enjoying the beautiful day. Naturally, we could have sat down and taken a zillion pictures of it, poked a stick at it, etc – but we’re frankly too cool for that. Animals have feelings and emotions like we do. NO PICTURE OR VIDEO IS WORTH CRUELLY UPSETTING OR SCARING AN INNOCENT AND HELPLESS ANIMAL. As you can tell from the pictures, we took only a few pictures, while keeping a distance, and then called it a day.
Jack C. Fisher Park in Owensboro, KY
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Turtle at Jack C. Fisher Park
