Turtlecam

GEN 1:31 God looked at everything He had made, and He was very pleased.

This is a real time picture of our office turtles. They were purchased on line at www.turtlesale.com. We started with several turtles, but unfortunately all died but Ethel, who is doing exceedingly well. Lucy was purchased later at a garden center, she is the larger turtle. For what it's worth, the mortality rater is high among hatchlings, so it might be better to buy a turtle at a pet shop. When I was young, we kept wild turtles as pets for varying amounts of time. This is not a good idea. You may be bringing in an endangered species, if you tame the turtle it may have a harder time when you release it back to the wild, and it will bring diseases. Also, turtles are rotten pets for children (as most animals are), they carry Salmonella and require a lot of care.

7-14-08 TURTLE UPDATE! We have been awarded winner of EarthCam's prestigious award, TOP10CAMS. Ten years ago my son (George W. Runkle IV) and I wrote an article for The Motley Fool titled "Potential of the Web, or What's the Point?", which covered the vast potential to waste hours and hours doing useless things on the World Wide Web. Among the most wonderful wastes of time that we found even back then were webcams. You could watch mundane events as they unfolded (or didn't unfold) on cameras real time around the world.

8-17-08 Update:
Since I've obtained the turtles, I've learned a bit more about their behavior. The strange behavior they show towards each other where they get nose to nose and flutter their front flippers is a courtship/dominance routine. According to another article I read, turtles don't need companionship with one another, so maybe I didn't need to get Lucy. However, they do seem to enjoy one another's company. I may be just anthromorphising my observations, which in Zoology class in college the professor said animal behaviorists were always in danger of doing.

I made the mistake of reading an article about how difficult it is to care for turtles, and what it said you have to do is exactly what I am doing. I change the water several times a week in the fishtank, I vary the food that I give them, and they are exposed to a UVA/UVB lamp on a timed schedule. It's a lot of work that I didn't think about.

George