Trained turtles?

[jinman]

I have to admit that I never considered turtles to be particularly smart and certainly not trainable. However, on a recent trip to the Arbuckle Wilderness in Oklahoma, we drove up to the edge of a pond and noticed the entire water's edge was full of turtles. All of a sudden the turtles started coming ashore, heading for the car. It was the weirdest feeling to see all those little "army helmets" heading in our direction.:shocked: I said that I suppose they could be coming for some food and we threw out feed pellets. The turtles grabbed up the pellets and headed back to the water. There were so many turtles coming and going that I was afraid to drive the car away for fear of running over one, but I knew if I delayed, they could end up surrounding the car.:confused2:

Here's a few pictures of the hungry herd. I guess we are the ones who were trained.:laughing:

 

[RoyJackson]

Pretty cool pictures!!!

Although turtles may not be "trainable", they can be conditioned. I'm going to guess quite a few tourists feed those critters...so now, when they see a car, they equate it to free food.

I had an iguana for several years....and, like those turtles, knew when she was going to be fed...sometimes Fido (iguana's name) had to remind me (she'd hiss at me). Maybe I was the trainable one...

 

[jinman]

Pretty cool pictures!!!

Although turtles may not be "trainable", they can be conditioned. I'm going to guess quite a few tourists feed those critters...so now, when they see a car, they equate it to free food.

Yep, Roy, it's a bit disconcerting when you are used to turtles like I have in my ponds and lake. As soon as they see me coming, they jump into the water and scram. These turtles have conditioned themselves to have no fear of people and see them as a food source in a short period of years. I think it's cool and a bit weird.

 

[Western]

That Jim, is the oddest thing I've seen or ever heard about turtles. Thanks for posting that, come to think of it map turtles do the same thing in an aquarium..But never thought you'd see that in a pond turtle.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Jim, I used to have 2 pet box turtles that lived for years in my chainlink fenced backyard. I would guess I had them for 4 or 5 years. They would come up for food when we fed the dogs in the evening.

 

[gotrocks]

I like the pics Jim.
As far as being trained or conditioned, let me tell you one of my stories. (TRUE)
When we walk up to the pond each afternoon with our floating fish food, the bream (and turtles) make a wake coming toward us. They must feel the vibrations of our walking.

I've said they remind me of the chickens we raised in my early years. They would come running when they knew it was chow time.

But; my best one (he's dead now)... while feeding the bream - bass would not eat the floating fish food... we started catching crickets and grasshoppers.. toss them in and bass would gobble them up.(When they could beat the bream to the "gulp")

After a while we notice one big bass in particular. He would eat a cricket or two and when we walked across the dam to the dock he would follow and eat a couple more.... continue our walk on around he would follow and eat a few more.. continue back to starting point he's right there.

This got to be a (almost) daily routine.

Finally got to where I could hold a cricket/grasshopper down to within 2-3 inches of the water and DB would just lay there and wait for me to let go.
Was never able to get him to take it out of my grasp.

I named him DB (Domesticated Bass); we enjoyed this for a couple of years.

Then one day while walking across the dam, I noticed something floating over next to the edge.

Walked on around and there was DB.. with a (2# smaller bass) in his mouth. Too big to swallow but fins caught in side of mouth so cannot spit out. Both dead. Took out my tape and measured DB... 24 inches long. Got the shovel and carried the two down beside one of my pear trees. That is the final resting place. (Don't remember which tree... BUT it was NOT one of the Moonglows)

Well, while we're at the pond... we had a couple of carp that got up to almost 3 feet long... named them G (Graff) and H (Hindenburg) they we getting old so purchased 5 more carp.

They are names S N R T L , referred to collectively as "The Wheel" Haven't bought any vowels yet.:ashamed:

Any of you other TBNers name your "wild" critters?

 

[jinman]

Norris, that's a great story.:thumbsup: We don't have any trained hungry bass, but our catfish sure follow us around the pond when we are on the Kawasaki Mule. In the early spring and winter months, the turtles come to our ponds in droves. There'll be 20-30 heads visible on the surface sometimes. When we feed, they come in close to the shore, but stay out of the way of the catfish school as they are in a feeding frenzy. The bluegill seem to stay right along the shoreline and nibble at individual pieces of floating food. Sometimes there'll be 5 or 6 darting in and out from the floating chunk of food.

What I've never seen before is turtles coming ashore. Watching turtles come out of the water, onto the bank, and start marching directly at you is just something I never expected in my wildest dream. Perhaps if we had been on foot, the turtles would not have come out of the water. Deer are certainly that way. I can get a lot closer to deer if I'm in a vehicle than if I'm walking.

BTW: On one recent hot day, Kathy noticed that while we were feeding, there were no turtles around. It seems that during these extremely hot months, the turtles leave our ponds and go out to the lake. Maybe it's because the lake has more food or something to do with the temperature of the water, but right now my ponds have zero turtles. They've just gone away.

 

[The Haymaker]

The Animal Conspiracy- An Inconvenient Horror - YouTube

 

[phiferpharm]

Boy, I wish I could train the Gopher Turtles on my property to follow me. I would lead them down the road and about three miles to the National Forest. Then, maybe I could mow my fields without worrying about hitting the d*?m turtle holes and screwing up my ZTR or tractor :thumbsup:

 

[Runner]

"Any of you other TBNers name your "wild" critters?"

We have a white toad that we call "Angel Toad". The turtles get pretty brave around here too, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with food, unless they want to eat US.