Meet Squirtle and Turtwig... or is it Shelldon and Mishell?
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TO THE untrained eye, the turtles which occupy Rockhampton Zoo’s newest exhibit look identical to the turtles basking in the Yeppen lagoon… and that’s because they are.
The two Krefft’s river turtles, which arrived last Tuesday, were confiscated by Queensland National Parks, after being kept in captivity.
Councillor Cherie Rutherford said it was unsafe to return them to the wild.
“They could potentially be exposed to diseases their bodies have not become immune to as they otherwise would have in the wild,” she said.
“Or they could potentially introduce disease into a wild environment endangering our native wildlife.”
The newest family members are settling into their new enclosure and had their first big feed yesterday.
There is a naming competition on the Rockhampton Zoo’s facebook page, where the public is invited to choose out of four combinations for the male and female turtles’ names.
They are Davy and Calypso, Trevor and Martha, Squirtle and Turtwig, and Shelldon and Mishell.
The turtles’ newly refurbished enclosure is near the kangaroo paddock in the native animals section.
