found a turtle! don't know what to feed!

[king2005]

My point is that it is illegal in the entire US to own a turtle under 4" in carapice length, regardless of where you live, species, etc.

yes & no.. You can breed your 2 turtles & produce baby turtles.. you just cannot sell those until they are 4" in length.

If your gonna break the law & keep him, go to this site www.turtletimes.com/forums There are PROs there & they will tell you that store bought foods isn't enough & they are not designed for Box turtles, usually only RES.

I'm one of the common snapper Pros on there

[Jessika]

yes & no.. You can breed your 2 turtles & produce baby turtles.. you just cannot sell those until they are 4" in length.

If your gonna break the law & keep him, go to this site www.turtletimes.com/forums There are PROs there & they will tell you that store bought foods isn't enough & they are not designed for Box turtles, usually only RES.

I'm one of the common snapper Pros on there

Well of course, but "technically" if the tortoise/turtle is native to your area, you need a license to keep it as a pet to begin with. You can have squirrels as pets in Japan, but not here in the US because they're native, you get what I'm saying?

[king2005]

Well of course, but "technically" if the tortoise/turtle is native to your area, you need a license to keep it as a pet to begin with. You can have squirrels as pets in Japan, but not here in the US because they're native, you get what I'm saying?

Yes, but not every state is the same.. On TT there are soooo many people all over the usa with Box turtles. They'll know the laws best.

[Jessika]

I used to work at PetCo and we worked closely with people who were cracking down on stuff like this because these people would come in to buy stuff for their tortoises they found in their backyards and such.

In the United States, it is illegal to take any wild animal from their habitat and keep it as a pet. Yes, people do it, but that does not change the law.

I tried to find specific information but sources were hard to come by (especially when all the links that came up pertained to owning Exotics such as Tigers and Bears lol!)

http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer...=adopt_exotics
http://www.houstonzoo.org/Wild_Anima...Pets/Index.aqf

Wow finding information is a lot harder than it looks

EDIT: Ahha found something useful finally!

http://ipl.unm.edu/cwl/statbook/indian.html

To obtain permits: http://www.fws.gov/permits/

Federal Law handbook:
http://ipl.unm.edu/cwl/fedbook/index.html

[buttercup132]

Box turtles are really common pets where I live though I dont think there illegal where I live then.

[Jessika]

Box turtles are really common pets where I live though I dont think there illegal where I live then.

"Box Turtles" are not a species of turtles, they're just the land tortoises all lumped into one category. There are MANY different species of tortoises. Some are native to certain areas, some aren't. Some are illegal to own without a permit, some aren't. It just depends on your local laws and what species you wish to keep as a pet. I suggest calling around or even searching online for local conservation laws for your area. Though you live close to me, so our wildlife would be relatively the same, I can not imagine our laws would differ a whole lot.

EDIT: Oops, I meant LUTE lived relatively close to me, sorry

[lute]

i had no idea it was illigal to keep such a small turtle. so many people have pet box tutles around here. i'll let her go.