Turtle update

If you remember, our student and friend Alex brought the kids 3 turtles at the beginning of the semester. Not very long later we noticed that one of the turtles' tail looked a little different. We thought that maybe he was a boy. Then it looked as if one of the turtles had been biting his tail. We thought that it would heal, but it never really did. Not that long ago, I thought his tail looked worse. It was pale and actually looked a little hollow, like it was dying or rotting. We decided that we should isolate him from the rest of the turtles in case it was contagious.

We kept him away for a bout a week and a half. Then when I was cleaning the turtle homes, I decided to check out his tail more. I flipped him over and looked at the bottom of is tail. There was a pretty angry looking bump. I figure it is either infection or a tumor. That was why his tail was dying.

So we had a decision to make.
We were not going to take him to a vet. I am sure that vets here don't really treat turtles.
We decided that the best thing to do would be to let him go. He won't get better, and I don't like the idea of watching him slowly die. We talked to the kids and said that we would take him to the pond and let him go, so that as long as he lives he will be very happy. So Monday we put him in the little glass bowl he came in and walked to the pond. There is a small pond that is really pretty, but when we looked at it, we thought that he would have trouble climbing out of that water ( it is a man-made pond). So we took him over to the bigger lake. Hallie placed him on a rock very near the water. He just sat there for a minute.
Then he looked around and jumped into the water and swam away. He settled on the bottom under a small plant. We watched until the kids got distracted (about 2 seconds). He looked as happy as turtles look when he swam away.

We left feeling peaceful and like we did the right thing. The kids are not sad at all! We have also talked about setting the other two free before we come home this summer.
But for now we have two turtles!