Special Features
Adopting A Turtle
Turtles are amazing creatures. They can make excellent pets and turtles offer many educational benefits for youngsters. Adopting a turtle is quite easy thanks to the World Wide Web. Interested parties can simply perform a search thru their preferred search engine using phrases such as “turtle adoption” or “adopt a turtle”. Some websites help people who can no longer keep a pet turtle pair up with a person who is willing and able to give the turtle a good home, while other websites are in the business of adopting a turtle as you would a highway.Turtles are one of the planet’s oldest species. Dating back to the time of the dinosaurs, these creatures have endured and survived for millions of years.
The first thing to consider is what type of turtle are you looking to adopt? A sea turtle, a box turtle or a water turtle such as a red-eared slider? Do you have the time, patience and supplies that adopting a turtle will require?
Only 1 in 10,000 marine turtles survive from hatchling to maturity. Thousands die each year from eating or becoming entangled in non-biodegradable debris and, even though there are laws forbidding it, the demand for sea turtle meat, eggs, shells, leather and oil continues to reduce their numbers. Thousands more drown in drift nets, which are cast into our oceans every night.
However, in recent years, humans have had a detrimental impact on marine life. Habitat destruction, accidental capture by commercial fishing, human harvest and collection of eggs, pollution, and climate change are posing an ever-increasing threat to the global turtle population.
The further development of beach resorts around the world is also affecting turtle numbers as the bright lights of discos, beach bars and cafes, causing them to wander inland where they quickly become disorientated, exhausted and easy prey for predators, are confusing newborn turtles.
