We all know the red-eared slider. For years the quarter-sized hatchlings with the red eye stripe were popular items in pet stores and in the pet section of most department stores. Most were sold as a package deal, a twenty-nine cent baby turtle and a clear plastic turtle bowl with a remarkably kitsch-y plastic palm-decorated center island, both for just $1.50

"Popular" is a bit of an understatement. During the 1960s, U.S. hatcheries produced as many as 15 million red-eared slider hatchlings, all destined for the pet market. Although the vast majority of red-ears never survived the first year (we knew nothing about their food needs, the importance of calcium and phosphorus being unknown at the time), a few did. You can guess what happened to those young turtles that survived long to become wearisome to their youthful owners: plop into the nearest freshwater lake/pond. By and large, this freedom also offered unlimited swimming room, sunlight, few predators, ready access to vegetation, and with luck, interested red-ears of the opposite sex.

Then the US Centers for Disease Control determined that salmonella infections in children might be the result of turtle ownership, and the Food and Drug Administration got involved, ignorning the fact that this bacteria is found everywhere in our world -- outside, in dirt, on plant leaves, on garden tools, on car door handles and inside, on the floor, on counters, on eggs, on fruits and vegetables.

When the FDA created regulations forbidding the interstate sale of baby turtles in 1975, they selected a shell length of four inches as the arbitrary cut-off point. This decision was based, I kid you not, on the idea that a four-inch turtle was too large to fit into a baby's mouth. Never doubt that some governmental decisions are arbitrary.

With Louisiana, the main production state, looking at nowhere to sell their baby turtles but overseas, turtle production dropped to about two million hatchlings a year. Those babies were largely destined for Asia and Europe.

The 70- odd turtle hatcheries in Louisiana went to work and developed methods to hatch salmonella-free hatchling turtles. They did this by washing the newly laid eggs in a bleach solution and then incubating the eggs in temperature- and humidity-controlled incubation chambers. The hatchlings were then placed into clean, salmonella-free bins. These salmonella-free babies were still largely destined for export to Europe, Asia and China, where they were pets, good luck symbols, and raised up and used for human food.

A few young red-ears in Europe, Asia, and China also found their way to freedom in streams, ponds and lakes, and found the living good. They grew up, mated, and generation followed generation. It didn't take long until concerns were raised about competition with native species (sound familiar?), and in 1998 Europe banned the import of non-native turtle species. In Asia, entrepreneurial turtle farmers began raising their own supply of red-ears.

Today, red-ears are found in canals, ponds, and other waterways in Europe and Asia. Jim Harding, a herpetology professor at the University of Michigan, saw them in a pool at the Eiffel Tower (no, they were not wearing tiny berets) and in the Dominican Republic. A professor of sociology at the University of Florida proudly showed me his photographs of a "temple turtle" in China -- it was a red-ear. Red-ears are also found in Japan, Germany, Israel, South Africa, and the Mariana Islands. Their range in the US expanded from the southern environs of the Mississippi River and the Rio Grande River, part of Mississippi, Alabama and far western Florida to Virginia, Georgia, all of Florida, Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington state, and Michigan.

So the next time you see a red-eared slider, admire its ability to adapt. And go ahead -- it still makes a nice pet.

Photos: R.D. Bartlett

We're used to drop-ins at our place, and last week was no exception. A 30-inch gator took up residence in the small frog pool we dug on the unfenced north end of our yard.



We live about a half mile from a large pond, fed by a small creek. Once in a while a good-sized gator is on the losing side of a nocturnal territory dispute and leaves the pond as a result.

We've had 8-footers in our yard twice. Once or twice during daylight hours we've seen smaller gators, about 4 feet long, stalking with great dignity alongside Williston Road, a busy street that separates our yard and the large pond from Payne's Prairie. But this is a losing stroll; busy roadways and wandering gators don't mix. A few may make it across; the next day all we see are the flattened corpses of those that don't.

Although they have been amazing prolific, it is still hard to be an alligator in Florida. Human invaders have taken over lakeside/riverside properties and their yappy dogs/sunning housecats are no match for a gator's jaws. Homeowners are nervous about gators, but dry land unprovoked attacks on humans are extremely rare. Alligators seem to sense human contact is to be avoided. But when the young gators grow too large to be tolerated by the resident bull gators, territory disputes result and the loser has to leave. Will he find a place to live before he wanders across a roadway? It's a race against time, stacked against the gator.

"Help" is available. The state has a program to deal with what's called nuisance alligators, those four feet or longer that are considered to be dangerous by the individuals who call the state's wildlife hotline. A licensed alligator trapper is summoned to haul away said gator. That gator, poor thing, becomes the property of the trapper. The "property" turns into meat and a tanned skin, a source of income for the trapper.

We discovered our latest too-small-to-be-a-problem gator late one afternoon when we walked up the hill to see how the new sod rimming the frog pool was faring. Centered in the pool, splayed to keep himself as inconspicuous as possible and circling to keep us in sight, was a thin, small gator. He obviously found us disquieting. The problem was space; the pool he had "discovered" was just 15 feet in diameter and maybe a foot deep. The pool wasn't large enough to offer enough cover to a hatchling gator, much less to this guy, who we guessed at maybe two years old. (A foot of water doesn't provide any invisibility to a creature whose survival depends on not being seen.)

We thought about where to relocate him (we know more about nearby bodies of water that he would, obviously) , but in the meantime hospitality won out and we offered comfort food. This was in the form of two dead white mice, tossed in the pond under cover of darkness. The impact of mice on water resulted in an agitated thrashing on the part of the gator.

Our visit and the mice evidently proved to be too much of an intrusion. Next morning the gator was gone and the untouched mice were still near the water's edge. I haven't had the heart to check Williston Road.

When you decide you'd like to set up a terrarium for your reptiles, you can go for a simple set-up or one that's considerably more complex.

The simple set-up is basically a monastic cell, with newspaper/paper towels on the bottom, a plastic hide box and a water container. Easy to set up, easy to maintain.



If the idea of looking at something so unadorned doesn't appeal to you (or if you figure your pet desires more than the least you can provide), you can put more effort into the setup and create something more naturalistic.

My first tokay gecko was purchased on a whim. I was living in Albuquerque, NM, just out of college, living back home while looking for work with no idea of where I'd end up. I made one of my regular trips into the only pet store in town that sold reptiles, and came eyeball to eyeball with a tokay gecko.

For someone whose lifetime experience with lizards had been limited to whiptails and what we called sand lizards (Uta sp.) the tokay was breathtaking. Money changed hands (I think the gecko cost $6.95) and I went home, proudly bearing my new treasure in a brown paper bag. I had a glass-fronted cage made from a dresser drawer leftover from my high school days, so I dug the cage out and set it up. I opened the bag with the gecko inside and placed it inside the cage. Pretty soon Fido Fidas Fidarae, Fido for short, came out of the bag and clung enchantingly to the back wall of the cage. I sat and watched him. He was something to look at, grey with powdered blue and deep red tubercles.

I knew nothing about geckos, and no idea Fido was nocturnal, although his large eyes gave me a basic clue. When he didn't immediately drink from his water dish, I was worried because I knew that reptiles need water. I opened the cage, covered my hand with a hand towel (I'd been bitten by race runners and knew lizards could nip) and picked him up. I offered him fresh cool water, streaming from the bathroom sink. He thanked me by turning inside the towel and latching onto the very end of my index finger. I saw stars. I tried to free my finger by pulling gently. He tightened down so hard his eyeballs sank in. I took him into the utility room and tried to gently pry his mouth open with a screwdriver. His jaw bent alarmingly and his eyeballs sunk in.

The two of us wandered around the house, my free hand supporting the lizard/hand/towel combination. I wondered what to do next, imagining the lizard as part of a bridal bouquet. I didn't even have a boyfriend at the time, but it was beginning to feel as if this lizard was going to be a permanent attachment. I returned to the bathroom sink, filled it partially with cool water, and stuck my lizardhand, already a single word in my vernacular, into the water. To my numbed delight, Fido let go. I drained the sink, covered him with the towel, and picked him up carefully and returned him to his house.

I moved to Florida a few months later, and Fido went with me. He lived for years, drinking sprayed-in water droplets from the sides of his tank and feeding on thawed, frozen mice. He took them with such intensity his eyeballs sank in, and it always made me flinch.

Things turned out OK for me and Fido, but the moral of this story is simply know what you're getting into before you plunk down your cash.

Your fingertips may thank you.

Years ago, when I first moved to Florida, my then-boyfriend took me out to look for cage furniture. We needed pieces of dead wood, curled tubes of bark, odd bits of driftwood, clumps of moss, the sort of item that helps turn a cage from "pathetic" to "that'll do."



The boyfriend was living in north Tampa, not too far from wooded areas and the Hillsborough River, and he was a herper (required) so I was pretty sure he'd know good areas to look.

On that day, we parked by SR 301 (then a tiny two lane) and walked into the woods. We had really good luck and within a few hours our arms were laden with exactly the right sort of stuff. I said OK, let's head back. My boyfriend looked at me as if I suddenly was speaking German. "Head back?" he said. "Which direction?" A short silence followed while I just l looked at him. He gave a short embarrassed laugh. "The last time I did this, I had to spend the night and then find my way out by the sound of traffic."

I thought, this was the all-time clumsiest effort at seduction I have ever seen. Spend the night in the woods indeed, and there's not even a tent? Was this guy for real?

I think every reptile and amphibian keeper has experienced that sinking sensation upon noticing a cage top ajar.

No matter how you've set up your caging, if the animal escapes, your caging or the keeper has failed. If you're an adult, you shrug and take steps to recover the creature. If you're a kid, you know your parents aren't going to be happy with the situation or your attempts to recapture the animal. Unless you find and restore your pet to its housing, this might be the end of your keeping herps for an extended period. If we're talking about an escaped venomous reptile, you (and the animal) need a lot more help than this note can offer.

The big bad about being out of a cage is being away from water. Amphibians are particularly subject to dessication, and it's a terrible way to die. You have maybe 12 hours, if you're lucky, to find your escaped amphibian and restore it to its cage with its fresh water droplets or a bowl of water.

Frogs, salamanders, and newts deal poorly with being away from moisture. Frogs may hop their way into your maybe more humid bathroom, but don't count on it. I never had one make it into the toilet, although I have wished they would. Reptiles are not as subject to desiccation, but the little guys, like anoles and snakes less than 24 inches long, don't have a lot of body bulk for moisture storage.

So, where do they go and how do you find them?