This addresses a myth that has probably cost a few turtles and tortoises their welfare. Don’t put a turtle off the road if there’s danger on both sides of the road. The ritual of putting the turtle off the road in the direction it was going is deeply flawed and stems from some of the habits of Gopherus polyphemus (a sandhill tortoise that really will try to walk ‘home’ if it’s caught as a pet.) Past that, the much more common tortoises and turtles we find here in Marietta would probably LOVE removal to a nonresidential healthy safe space full of other adults of their species in the middle of no where heh heh. I take all the ones I catch up to Blue Ridge: +30 uninhabited and no-lawnmower acres on Wilscot Creek.
I’ve been keeping turtles and tortoises for too long to remember all the reading it took thirty years ago, I’ve been an instructor at University of Georgia’s Exotics Course for several years, a veterinarian, Tortoise breeder (geochelone sulcata) and have a breeding colony of Three Toed Box, and Eastern Wood Turtles. As a veterinarian I do surgery on turtles but have not had call to do any on tortoises because they’re not hit by cars or lawnmowers. Currently as well I have a Carretys insculpta which is not terrestrial. My point is that my background in turtles and tortoises does not include relocating turtles and tortoises to safer areas and then finding empty dead shells later, or observing captive and relocated turtles and tortoises wandering til they die.
However I do recall working with Sue Barnard at the Atlanta Zoo very briefly on Gopherus polyphemus, the gopher turtle which actually will fade / fail if removed from it’s sandhill community and burrow – they are not deliicate animals but they are psychologically and their burrow is keenly important. Besides that most turtles can be relocated to safe environments and if they have suitable sites to lay eggs, aestivate and hibernate plus drinking water, they’ll stay put. If there’s a territorial conflict between Eastern Box turtles, one or the other will move about 150 yards in another direction and that’ll solve that :u)
