SURRENDERING A TURTLE OR TORTOISE 🐢

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Due to a huge increase in turtle surrenders, we are currently at capacity for sliders and cooters of all sizes and sexes. Our social media has exploded this past year and we just can’t keep up. We’re working hard to build much larger ponds so we can take more turtles in the future, but for now we need to limit admissions.

We get hundreds of rehoming requests every year. If you need to find a new home for your slider or cooter and can’t find a place with space, try posting on social media to see if someone will take the commitment. Please also help spread the word that these turtles are not good pets for every , they take time, money, special care, and often outdoor enclosures as adults. 

We wish we could take every turtle and give them the care our residents get, but the need far exceeds what a small organization like us can handle. If you’d like to help us grow and build rescue ponds, please consider donating or becoming a monthly supporter, even small monthly gifts make a big difference. We’re sorry we can’t accept any turtles right now, but we’re doing everything we can to change that.

Finally, please never release captive turtles into the wild. They rarely survive, and releasing them risks spreading disease and harming native species.

We also DO NOT accept any North American box turtle species - these are illegal to possess more than one in our state.

We DO NOT accept sulcatas. Sulcatas have been massively overbred and have placed a huge strain on rescues and sanctuaries across the U.S. because we receive a very high volume of inquiries specifically about this species, we may not be able to discuss sulcatas if you reach out. One of our educational goals is to show people better tortoise choices that are less likely to be abandoned or rehomed than sulcatas.