I don't know much about turtles. But I know that they are available at some specialty pet stores. We have a store here in Greenville that is actually a Feed and Seed store, but they sell reptiles. Turtles are heavily legislated in SC, and I think there is some law that you can only sell them to teachers....sounds kind of crazy. But every turtle we ever had came from the pond down the street! And my sister has two from there, that my brother caught for her as babies, and now they are in excess of 10 years old. They are water turtles, but I don't know what you call them.

We have some turtle owners here on Pet Talk in ThelmaLu and Ben E. Gas, so maybe they can give you some advice.

Good luck!