{"id":841336,"date":"2026-08-01T23:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T23:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/841336\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T23:57:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T23:57:16","slug":"why-you-shouldnt-bring-a-native-turtle-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/841336\/","title":{"rendered":"Why you shouldn’t bring a native turtle home"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are four native species of turtle in Nova Scotia.<\/p>\n

The Shubenacadie Wildlife Park is encouraging residents not to take them home as pets, and to watch out for them on the roads<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The species in the province include wood, eastern painted, Blanding’s and snapping.<\/p>\n

The long-lived animals are slow moving and summer is a prime time to see them<\/a>. That’s because it’s when they’re most active. They are trying to find a breeding partner, a place to lay eggs and locate fresh food.<\/p>\n

If you see one on the side of the road and you can safely stop, you can get out and check on the turtle.<\/p>\n

\"Wood<\/p>\n

Wood turtle\/Nate Coleman\/TWN<\/p>\n

(Nathan Coleman\/The Weather Network)<\/p>\n

“If they are willing, they can move the turtle in the direction it was moving already. However, turtles can carry a lot of diseases, so if you don’t want to touch a turtle, that is fine. If you do, wash your hands,” said Tabitha Cox, senior nature interpreter at the Shubenacadie Provincial Wildlife Park.<\/p>\n

“The snapping turtle, of course, can snap. The Blanding’s can be a bit snappy, as well. Even just encouraging them [to go] in the direction they were already going in [is helpful], then that way you know they’re not going to turn around and go back.”<\/p>\n

The Blanding’s turtle is listed as endangered in Nova Scotia, wood turtles are threatened, and snapping turtles are listed as vulnerable.<\/p>\n

Most of the turtles kept at the wildlife park were, at one time, illegal pets.<\/p>\n

It is illegal to keep any native turtle species<\/a> as a pet in Nova Scotia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are four native species of turtle in Nova Scotia. The Shubenacadie Wildlife Park is encouraging residents not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":841337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[292978,49,48,22809,907,66,184700,136320,292979],"class_list":["post-841336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-blanding39s-turtle","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-native-species","tag-nova-scotia","tag-science","tag-shubenacadie-wildlife-park","tag-snapping-turtle","tag-wood-turtles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}