What Do You Do if You Find a Turtle (+ Biggest Mistakes)

Despite their hardy appearance turtles can be quite fragile and easy to scare, so it’s important to know how to act properly when you find one, and even more importantly what to do with it.

When you find a turtle it’s recommended to leave it where it is. If the turtle is in the middle of the road you should gently pick it up and move it across the road. If the turtle is in your backyard you can either let it be or pick it up and place it behind the fence.

In this article, I am going to cover what to do if you find a turtle in the middle of the road, in your backyard, how to safely pick it up, how to move a turtle without picking it up, and some of the biggest mistakes that you can make. But let’s start with the beginning.

How to Safely Pick Up a Turtle

There are two ways that you can safely pick up a turtle, and depending on the size of the turtle you can use either one.

By the Sides

Picking up a turtle by the sides is perfectly acceptable. By doing so you put your hands away from the mouth of the turtle, so there is no chance it will bite you, and away from the front legs which it can use to scratch you.

I mentioned biting and scratching, but I don’t want to scare you. I picked more than my fair share of wild turtles and none of them wanted to bite or scratch me. So you shouldn’t have to worry that this will happen, but just in case the turtle it’s aggressive you want to make sure that it can’t harm you. Now back to the method.

The only negative aspect of this method is that it only works on small and medium turtles. While you can use both of your hands to pick up the turtle, at one point if the turtle is too big, it will be very uncomfortable for the turtle. This is why for bigger turtles we use the over and under method.

The Over and Under

As the name implies you place one hand under the turtle and one over the turtle.

When you place the hand under the turtle you can either use your full palm or the tips of your fingers. Just make sure that you won’t drop the turtle, as it can be extremely harmful to them.

Those are the safest ways to pick up a turtle. Now let’s see what you can do if you don’t want to pick up the turtle yourself.

How to Move a Turtle Without Picking It Up

If for whatever reason you don’t want to pick up the turtle there is still one other way to speed things up.

You can pick up a small stick from the ground and center tap on the backside of the shell. This is the equivalent of putting a person on the back and saying: “Come on, go now”.

Just make sure that you are very gentle, and that you don’t come off as an attacker. If the turtle thinks that you are attacking it, it will retract into its shell and you will be left with no other option than to pick it up.

Now let’s cover the most common situations in which you can encounter a turtle and you might want to move it.

What to Do if You Find a Turtle on the Road

In almost all cases you want to help the turtle cross the road safely.

But before getting out of the car to move the turtle make sure that you don’t put yourself in danger. Turn on the emergency lights, and if it’s night put on a reflective jacket.

And make sure that you move the turtle in the direction that it was going and that you disinfect your hands afterward, but more about this in the mistakes section. Now let’s move to the other scenario.

What to Do if You Find a Turtle in Your Backyard

Things are a little more complex in this case.

Turtles usually go into backyards for two reasons.

Egg Laying

The first reason is that they are looking for a spot to lay their eggs, this usually happens during the end of the spring and during the summer.

There are two things that you could do. The first one is to pick up the turtle and place it outside of the fence, and hope that it doesn’t return, or you could simply let her find a place to lay the eggs.

The problem with letting her lay the eggs is that she will most likely return to lay more eggs over time. So if you don’t want this to happen gently pick the turtle up and place her outside of your backyard.

Turtles don’t spend time near their nests so you don’t have to worry about that. The only problems that can arise are damage to the lawn, and the turtle eating from your garden.

So it’s up to you what you decided to do. If you don’t want the turtle to lay eggs in your backyard I would suggest you find out how she got there in the first place, and block the entrance. Otherwise, she will most likely get back in again.

But if you have no problem with her laying eggs in your backyard you should know that you have two ways of proceeding, you could either let the turtle lay the eggs and leave the eggs alone and unprotected, or you could help them hatch.

If you want to lend a helping hand you might want to read this article: How to Take Care of Turtle Eggs (Easy Guide With Pictures).

Now let’s talk about the second reason why a turtle might be in your backyard.

Hibernation

When winter approaches turtles to look for a safe place to hibernate. So basically they are looking for a place to spend the winter.

Usually, turtles hibernate at the bottom of a lake, but when they can’t find a spot there, they will look for a safe spot where they can dig a hole, or for a big pile of leaves.

If you decide to let the turtle hibernate in your backyard you most likely won’t even know that it’s there.

But if you don’t want the turtle to dig a hole and mess up your lawn you can simply pick it up and move it outside.

Now that we discussed the most common cases in which you can encounter a turtle, let’s go over the most common and worst mistakes that you can make.

Biggest Mistakes That You Can Make

Now let’s go over some of the biggest mistakes that you can make when you find a turtle.

Moving the Turtle in the Wrong Direction

If you find a turtle in the middle of the road and you decide to help it cross the road make sure that you move it in the right direction. This is extremely important.

If you move the turtle to the wrong side of the road it will try to cross it again. And the next person that comes along might not be as careful as you and might hit the turtle.

Turtles don’t crossroads just to wander about. They do it with a purpose, they could either go towards a nesting area, or look for food or water, or something else. So they will try to cross the road again.

Taking the Turtle to Another Area

A surprising amount of people do this, and it’s somewhat understandable, but that doesn’t make it any less wrong.

People do this because they find a turtle in a not-so-pleasing area and they think that taking it to a pond or lake will help the turtle, but that’s not how turtles work.

Turtles spend their lives in the same area, which they end up knowing by heart. They know where to get food, they know where to get water, they know what predators are nearby and how to hide from them.

If you take a turtle to a new area it won’t know any of those things, and it might end up not having enough time to get to know them.

Taking the Turtle Home as a Pet

Again, this is something that might not seem right at first sight but it’s actually extremely bad.

First of all, there is a good chance that taking a turtle from the wild is illegal in that area, as it’s the case in most states. But if you want to check out this interactive map which will lead you to articles about the laws of each state: Turtle State Laws Interactive Map.

The second big problem is that older wild turtles won’t properly adapt to being a pet, which can make them feel trapped and depressed, which will end up with health problems. 

Another big problem is that wild turtles can carry disease, and you definitely don’t want a pet that can make you sick at any time.

And finally, one of the biggest problems is that by taking one single turtle away from its ecosystem you might end up destroying it. I know this sounds exaggerated but it’s actually not. In some areas, the turtle population has declined drastically, and as a result, the ecosystem has become extremely unstable. An unstable ecosystem could mean that there will be a lot more mosquitos in your area, or snakes or spiders, or other not-so-pleasant critters.

So to keep things short you don’t want to unbalance any ecosystem any more than it already is.

Not Washing Your Hands After You Touch the Turtle

Turtles can carry a lot of harmful bacterias on them, so washing your hands after you touch them is extremely important.

If you don’t have water and soap at your disposal, disinfectant is also good. But if you have neither of those you can use a napkin to pick up the turtle.

If you don’t have anything to disinfect your hands, or something to cover your hands while picking up the turtle, avoid moving your hands near your face until you can wash them.

Beware of Snapping Turtles

Some turtle species are more aggressive than others, but none of them are more aggressive and dangerous than the snapping turtle.

So while you don’t have to remember how all turtle species look and are called, you should definitely remember the two snapping turtle species and the fact that it can be very dangerous.

The Alligator Snapping Turtle

And the Common Snapping Turtle

Final Thoughts

So if you find a turtle on the road the best thing that you can do is help it cross the road.

If you find a turtle in your backyard you can either let the turtle stay or move it outside, this is more of a personal preference than a right or wrong situation.

I hope this article told you everything that you wanted to know, but in case you still have some questions left don’t hesitate to leave them in the comment section, I will do my best to answer them as soon as possible. 

Hello,

If you enjoy the content that we create, please consider saying a "Thank You!" by leaving a tip.

Every little bit can help us tremendously in continuing to create quality content that helps turtle and tortoise owners around the world.

We really appreciate the kindness and support that you show us!