NEW YORK CITYBright green and viscous, Morningside Pond seems like a vat of unappealing pea soup. Styrofoam cups and plastic bags hold close the pond’s edge, bound in situ by bubbles of green foam. This is, perhaps, what’s to be expected of a man-made pond within the center of a replacement York City park.
Still, there's life here. A stream flows over the exposed bedrock opposite the pond’s benches, and a couple of weeping willows bend toward the shore. then there’s the row of nearly 100 turtles lined up along the pond’s edge, glistening within the springtime sun.
These are red-eared sliders, the foremost popular turtle within the American pet trade. Native to Mississippi and therefore the Gulf of Mexico, they’re bred by turtle farmers on an industrial scale and sold wholesale to pet retailers. quite 52 million red-eared sliders were legally exported from us between 1989 and 1997, many of them to China, consistent with the International Union for Conservation of Nature. more are sold illegally through a network of pet shops, street vendors, and websites.
Red-eared sliders—so named for the brilliant red marks on their heads that appear as if ears—are consistently designated one among the world’s hundred worst invasive species by the IUCN. When pet owners realize the reptiles require large tanks and expensive filtration systems and may live up to 50 years, they often dump them outside. (Read why you ought to never release exotic pets into the wild.)
Indeed, up to 90 percent of the sliders during this pond—the overwhelming majority of which are hidden beneath the murky water—are likely former pets, says Allen Salzberg, publisher of the HerpDigest Newsletter and longtime member of the nonprofit NY Turtle and Tortoise Society.
The phenomenon isn't unique to New York: The invasive reptiles now sleep in nearly every U.S. state, including Hawaii. Though it's difficult to tally the turtle’s invasive population, users of the iNaturalist app have documented tens of thousands of verified red-eared slider observations in nearly every U.S. residential and concrete region over the past decade.
But these abandoned pets are getting a serious nuisance to NY City’s urban ecosystem—crowding out native turtle species, creating harmful algal blooms in local waterways, and possibly exposing humans to salmonella.
Adaptable species
Even though they’re Southerners, red-eared sliders have adapted well to life within the long island. “They’re total optimists,” Salzberg says. “They make the foremost of whatever they need .”
For instance, the species can live for months without food, slowing their metabolism when resources are scarce. And when food is prevalent, because it is in Morningside Park, they continue to grow. In fact, many of the sliders in Morningside Pond are overweight, with unusually thick legs and necks. It also doesn’t help that the reptiles will eat just about anything, including fish, insects, vegetation, and even human snacks like potato chips. Their sturdy carapaces and speed within the water also provide tough defenses against predators like raccoons and coyotes.
As their numbers have exploded, native species are suffering.
Spotted turtles, musk turtles, map turtles, bog turtles, wood turtles, painted turtles, Eastern mud turtles, and diamondback terrapins all wont to share ownership of latest York’s waters, keeping each other’s populations in restraint. But competition with red-eared sliders for food and space to enjoys the sun—crucial for the cold-blooded creatures—has caused native turtle populations to drop. as an example, eastern painted turtles are the foremost common species in NY State, but their numbers have declined in some areas, partially thanks to red-eared sliders. (Read how invasive species can wreak havoc on ecosystems.)
“There’s a pond in Central Park … named Turtle Pond,” Salzberg says. “I wont to attend that pond and see a pleasant number of painted turtles and snapping turtles. Now it’s all sliders. My wife and that I saw one painted terrapin in there two years ago.”
Morningside Pond’s green water is additionally the fault of the red-eared sliders. Phytoplankton, the microscopic plants that cause the brilliant chlorophyte blooms, feed off nutrients in animal waste. The algae blooms consume oxygen and block the daylight, harming invertebrates and plants.
Illegal releases
New York City laws prohibit pet release of any kind. But to enforce such a law, park rangers would wish to patrol every sq ft of each park, 24 hours each day, says Christopher Joya, a secondary school teacher and volunteer with Urban Utopia Wildlife Rehabilitation, a replacement York City-based network of state-licensed wildlife rehabilitators.
Joya also teaches secondary school science at JHS 88 Peter Rouget in Brooklyn. Last year, he was teaching 11-year-olds a unit on wildlife medicine and rehabilitation when one among his students showed up to high school with a box, which he proudly deposited on Joya’s desk. Inside was a red-eared slider.
The student had watched a pet owner place his unwanted turtle on open grass in Prospect Park. Having learned from Joya that livestock isn't suited to life within the wild, the scholar picked the turtle right copy. (See beautiful photos of reptiles and amphibians.)
“It was an excellent moment on behalf of me as an educator,” Joya says. “I was like, wow, you really learned something.”
Joya knew that finding a replacement home for this turtle would be tough. Red-eared sliders have saturated the pet market so thoroughly that the tiny number of latest York-based turtle conservation and rescue groups can not take them in.
Joya, deciding to stay the rescued slider in his classroom, spent many dollars out of his own pocket to shop for a 50-gallon tank. the category named the turtle Peace.
Underground sales
There is some health risk to owning a red-eared slider. Like most reptiles and amphibians, turtles naturally carry salmonella bacteria in their bodies. They’re also easy for youngsters to handle affectionately, hugging their shells to their cheeks and kissing their turtle heads.
This is how salmonella—which are often deadly to children—spreads from turtle to human.
In 1975, to deal with the spread of salmonella, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration passed the “Four-Inch Law,” prohibiting the sale of turtles with carapaces fewer than four inches wide. Why four inches? Salzberg says that was the length that FDA regulators theorized young children could not shove a whole baby turtle into their mouths.
The 1975 regulation did limit the sale of red-eared sliders in pet stores, but within the underground pet shops of the latest York City’s Chinatown, young turtles still drive an illegal marketplace for the pets. Baby sliders are often sold by street vendors in Brooklyn, Harlem, and Queens, also as online—as of 2020, a minimum of 20 websites were selling illegal sliders under four inches wide.
“Young parents are going to be walking through Chinatown with their kid and therefore the kid goes, Mommy! Mommy! check out that cute little turtle! And next thing they know, they’re cursed with a pet for 50 to 60 years,” Salzberg says.
No perfect solution
Back at Morningside Pond, a gaggle of youngsters watches the turtles. a woman picks one out of the water and holds it with outstretched arms, squealing because the turtle moves its legs back and forth, swimming through the air. Joya approaches her, and she or he drops the turtle onto the concrete shore below her.
“Did you recognize turtles can feel every touch on the surface of their shells a bit like humans feel their skin?” he asks the youngsters, after putting the uninjured turtleback within the water. “Their backbone is really built right into their shell.”
Beyond educating children about being liable for pet ownership, both Joya and Salzberg admit there are not any perfect solutions to the red-eared slider problem in NY City. There are Facebook groups where people can post-adoption ads to rehome their turtles, though the availability is far above the demand. (Learn what would happen if there have been no more turtles.)
Humane euthanasia—though in Joya’s opinion the last resort—is often the foremost realistic option for both the turtles and therefore the environment that they’re damaging, Joya says.
“I’m sorry if this upsets anyone, but…” Joya says, pausing to seem at the youngsters. “Actually, scratch that. I’m not sorry. Because you ought to have done your research once you got the turtle within the first place.”
Still, there's life here. A stream flows over the exposed bedrock opposite the pond’s benches, and a couple of weeping willows bend toward the shore. then there’s the row of nearly 100 turtles lined up along the pond’s edge, glistening within the springtime sun.
These are red-eared sliders, the foremost popular turtle within the American pet trade. Native to Mississippi and therefore the Gulf of Mexico, they’re bred by turtle farmers on an industrial scale and sold wholesale to pet retailers. quite 52 million red-eared sliders were legally exported from us between 1989 and 1997, many of them to China, consistent with the International Union for Conservation of Nature. more are sold illegally through a network of pet shops, street vendors, and websites.
Red-eared sliders—so named for the brilliant red marks on their heads that appear as if ears—are consistently designated one among the world’s hundred worst invasive species by the IUCN. When pet owners realize the reptiles require large tanks and expensive filtration systems and may live up to 50 years, they often dump them outside. (Read why you ought to never release exotic pets into the wild.)
Indeed, up to 90 percent of the sliders during this pond—the overwhelming majority of which are hidden beneath the murky water—are likely former pets, says Allen Salzberg, publisher of the HerpDigest Newsletter and longtime member of the nonprofit NY Turtle and Tortoise Society.
The phenomenon isn't unique to New York: The invasive reptiles now sleep in nearly every U.S. state, including Hawaii. Though it's difficult to tally the turtle’s invasive population, users of the iNaturalist app have documented tens of thousands of verified red-eared slider observations in nearly every U.S. residential and concrete region over the past decade.
But these abandoned pets are getting a serious nuisance to NY City’s urban ecosystem—crowding out native turtle species, creating harmful algal blooms in local waterways, and possibly exposing humans to salmonella.
Adaptable species
Even though they’re Southerners, red-eared sliders have adapted well to life within the long island. “They’re total optimists,” Salzberg says. “They make the foremost of whatever they need .”
For instance, the species can live for months without food, slowing their metabolism when resources are scarce. And when food is prevalent, because it is in Morningside Park, they continue to grow. In fact, many of the sliders in Morningside Pond are overweight, with unusually thick legs and necks. It also doesn’t help that the reptiles will eat just about anything, including fish, insects, vegetation, and even human snacks like potato chips. Their sturdy carapaces and speed within the water also provide tough defenses against predators like raccoons and coyotes.
As their numbers have exploded, native species are suffering.
Spotted turtles, musk turtles, map turtles, bog turtles, wood turtles, painted turtles, Eastern mud turtles, and diamondback terrapins all wont to share ownership of latest York’s waters, keeping each other’s populations in restraint. But competition with red-eared sliders for food and space to enjoys the sun—crucial for the cold-blooded creatures—has caused native turtle populations to drop. as an example, eastern painted turtles are the foremost common species in NY State, but their numbers have declined in some areas, partially thanks to red-eared sliders. (Read how invasive species can wreak havoc on ecosystems.)
“There’s a pond in Central Park … named Turtle Pond,” Salzberg says. “I wont to attend that pond and see a pleasant number of painted turtles and snapping turtles. Now it’s all sliders. My wife and that I saw one painted terrapin in there two years ago.”
Morningside Pond’s green water is additionally the fault of the red-eared sliders. Phytoplankton, the microscopic plants that cause the brilliant chlorophyte blooms, feed off nutrients in animal waste. The algae blooms consume oxygen and block the daylight, harming invertebrates and plants.
Illegal releases
New York City laws prohibit pet release of any kind. But to enforce such a law, park rangers would wish to patrol every sq ft of each park, 24 hours each day, says Christopher Joya, a secondary school teacher and volunteer with Urban Utopia Wildlife Rehabilitation, a replacement York City-based network of state-licensed wildlife rehabilitators.
Joya also teaches secondary school science at JHS 88 Peter Rouget in Brooklyn. Last year, he was teaching 11-year-olds a unit on wildlife medicine and rehabilitation when one among his students showed up to high school with a box, which he proudly deposited on Joya’s desk. Inside was a red-eared slider.
The student had watched a pet owner place his unwanted turtle on open grass in Prospect Park. Having learned from Joya that livestock isn't suited to life within the wild, the scholar picked the turtle right copy. (See beautiful photos of reptiles and amphibians.)
“It was an excellent moment on behalf of me as an educator,” Joya says. “I was like, wow, you really learned something.”
Joya knew that finding a replacement home for this turtle would be tough. Red-eared sliders have saturated the pet market so thoroughly that the tiny number of latest York-based turtle conservation and rescue groups can not take them in.
Joya, deciding to stay the rescued slider in his classroom, spent many dollars out of his own pocket to shop for a 50-gallon tank. the category named the turtle Peace.
Underground sales
There is some health risk to owning a red-eared slider. Like most reptiles and amphibians, turtles naturally carry salmonella bacteria in their bodies. They’re also easy for youngsters to handle affectionately, hugging their shells to their cheeks and kissing their turtle heads.
This is how salmonella—which are often deadly to children—spreads from turtle to human.
In 1975, to deal with the spread of salmonella, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration passed the “Four-Inch Law,” prohibiting the sale of turtles with carapaces fewer than four inches wide. Why four inches? Salzberg says that was the length that FDA regulators theorized young children could not shove a whole baby turtle into their mouths.
The 1975 regulation did limit the sale of red-eared sliders in pet stores, but within the underground pet shops of the latest York City’s Chinatown, young turtles still drive an illegal marketplace for the pets. Baby sliders are often sold by street vendors in Brooklyn, Harlem, and Queens, also as online—as of 2020, a minimum of 20 websites were selling illegal sliders under four inches wide.
“Young parents are going to be walking through Chinatown with their kid and therefore the kid goes, Mommy! Mommy! check out that cute little turtle! And next thing they know, they’re cursed with a pet for 50 to 60 years,” Salzberg says.
No perfect solution
Back at Morningside Pond, a gaggle of youngsters watches the turtles. a woman picks one out of the water and holds it with outstretched arms, squealing because the turtle moves its legs back and forth, swimming through the air. Joya approaches her, and she or he drops the turtle onto the concrete shore below her.
“Did you recognize turtles can feel every touch on the surface of their shells a bit like humans feel their skin?” he asks the youngsters, after putting the uninjured turtleback within the water. “Their backbone is really built right into their shell.”
Beyond educating children about being liable for pet ownership, both Joya and Salzberg admit there are not any perfect solutions to the red-eared slider problem in NY City. There are Facebook groups where people can post-adoption ads to rehome their turtles, though the availability is far above the demand. (Learn what would happen if there have been no more turtles.)
Humane euthanasia—though in Joya’s opinion the last resort—is often the foremost realistic option for both the turtles and therefore the environment that they’re damaging, Joya says.
“I’m sorry if this upsets anyone, but…” Joya says, pausing to seem at the youngsters. “Actually, scratch that. I’m not sorry. Because you ought to have done your research once you got the turtle within the first place.”
Follow Us