24/05/2015
They will have something to celebrate during World Turtle Day now that they are bound for permanent sanctuaries where they will receive lifelong professional care rather than being sold into the exotic pet trade.
Unscrupulous wildlife traffickers possibly working for the exotic pet trade brought more than 650 of these turtles into the United States illegally from China, in tiny cramped boxes with no food or water. Not all of the babies survived the trip. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation seized the turtles from New York City's Chinatown two weeks ago and gave the survivors, 620 of them, to Lorri Cramer, a wildlife rehabilitator with the New York Turtle and Tortoise Society, for temporary shelter in her Upper West Side apartment.
