Pond Slider (Trachemys scripta)

Q: What is the difference between a red-eared slider and a yellow-bellied slider?

The patch behind the eye. Red-eared sliders have a broad red or orange stripe; yellow-bellied sliders have a large yellow blotch that joins the neck stripe. In the Southeast the yellow-bellied is the native subspecies and the red-eared is an introduced pet-trade animal. Two complications are worth knowing. Where both occur they interbreed, so intermediate-looking intergrades are real and documented rather than a bad identification. And old males of either subspecies can darken to nearly solid black and lose the patch altogether.

Q: Why do turtles stack on top of each other on a log?

Because basking is thermoregulation and haul-out space is limited, so they compete for it. Temperature telemetry on Florida sliders showed an adult basking turtle raising its body temperature at least 10 degrees C above the near-surface water it came out of. The same study found basking is not a daily requirement: some individuals basked five times in a day while much of the population did not bask at all that day.

Q: Will the turtles in my pond eat all my fish?

No. University of Florida IFAS Extension addresses this directly, noting that sliders get shot by pond owners on this belief and that it is not accurate. Young sliders eat small worms and aquatic insects, and adults shift largely to plants. The same correction applies to cooters, the other common basking pond turtle.

Q: Can I catch a slider from my pond and keep it as a pet?

It depends on the state, and it is more restricted than most people expect. South Carolina caps personal possession at five yellow-bellied sliders and ten native turtles in aggregate, and prohibits selling, trading, or even re-homing a native reptile except under defined exceptions. Georgia caps possession at ten freshwater turtles without a commercial permit. Florida limits the take of native sliders to one per person per day with no commercial use, and the non-native red-eared slider requires an FWC permit to possess at all. Check with your own state wildlife agency first.

Q: Is the turtle in my yard a snapping turtle?

If you saw it basking on a log, almost certainly not. Sliders are habitual log-baskers that slide into the water when approached, and common snapping turtles rarely bask. On the animal itself, a snapping turtle has a very large head it cannot pull into the shell, a long tail with a saw-toothed ridge of raised scales, and a small cross-shaped bottom shell that leaves the limbs exposed. That distinction matters, because a slider is not a bite hazard while a snapping turtle handled on land is.

Q: How long do pond sliders live?

Up to about 30 years in wild South Carolina populations, with a maximum recorded captive longevity of 41.3 years. Both figures carry a caveat from their own sources: wild lifespan data for this species are thin, and captive age claims are frequently exaggerated. One genuinely unusual finding is that studies of wild sliders have failed to detect any increase in mortality with age. The practical point for a would-be turtle owner is that a hatchling bought on impulse is a multi-decade commitment, which is exactly how so many end up released.

Pond Slider (Red-Eared and Yellow-Bellied Slider)

This is the turtle on the log. If you have a pond, a retention basin, a canal, or a golf course water hazard anywhere in the eastern two thirds of the country, the animals lined up on the nearest fallen tree, sometimes stacked on top of each other, are almost certainly pond sliders. They are not the animal people are afraid of. Sliders bask, and a basking turtle is not a snapping turtle, which is the single most useful thing to know for anyone deciding whether the turtle in the yard is dangerous. What makes the pond slider genuinely complicated is not risk to people. It is that the pet trade turned one subspecies of it, the red-eared slider, into one of the most widely released animals on earth, and those released pets are now interbreeding with the native yellow-bellied slider across the Southeast and the Mid-Atlantic. The regulations attached to this species are almost entirely about that problem, not about bites.

Seasonal Timeline

Sliders are diurnal and active in the warm months, basking hardest through the middle of the morning, and they overwinter underwater in soft bottom mud, muskrat burrows, or simply sitting on the bottom. The behavior that puts one on a lawn or driveway is nesting, and that runs roughly April through July.

Peak, SoutheastMay–Jul

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

Sliders are diurnal and active in the warm months, basking hardest through the middle of the morning, and they overwinter underwater in…

Basking is the seasonal behavior worth understanding, because it is thermoregulation and it is measurable. A Florida Museum of Natural History study of yellow-bellied sliders at a north Florida sinkhole pond used temperature telemetry to show that an adult turtle sitting out on a log could raise its body temperature at least 10 degrees C above the near-surface water it had just left. That study identified thermoregulation as the primary function of basking from four separate behavioral lines: the way a basking turtle orients its body and extends its head, legs, and even the digits of its rear feet; the fact that a turtle will stay on a site after it falls into shade but will rarely climb out onto a spot that is already shaded; the way basking frequency and duration shift inversely as air and water temperature and sunshine decline; and the switch to submerged basking sites or floating in warm surface water once the water itself is warm enough.

Two findings from that work cut against what most people assume. Basking is not a daily requirement. Some individuals basked as many as five times in one day in good weather, while a considerable share of the same population did not bask at all that day. And the numbers move with water temperature rather than the calendar: atmospheric basking peaked at a daily mean water temperature of 28.5 degrees C, while aquatic basking increased as water temperature climbed toward 31.5 degrees C. Basking duration also scales with body size, so a large old female and a young turtle in the same pond are not on the same schedule.

Mating timing is genuinely disputed across sources. A university museum account gives a breeding season beginning in April and usually running through late October, extending into December in ideal weather. Virginia's state wildlife agency describes mating in spring, fall, and winter for the yellow-bellied slider and in any season but summer for the red-eared slider. Nesting is far more consistent across sources, April through July, and nest construction usually happens at dusk and at night.

Where They're Found

Eight regions carry this animal, and the native versus introduced status is different in each.

Native range: Southeast, South Central, and Midwest. The yellow-bellied slider is the Atlantic-slope native, with an indigenous range covering southeastern Virginia south through the Coastal Plains of the Carolinas, Georgia, northern Florida, and eastern Alabama. The red-eared slider's own indigenous range is the Mississippi River drainage system: broadly across the midwestern states, east as far as West Virginia with a disjunct relict population in southern Ohio, west to eastern New Mexico, and south below the Rio Grande into northeastern Mexico. A third subspecies, the Cumberland slider, occupies only eastern and northeastern Tennessee and the extreme southwestern corner of Virginia.

Introduced and established: Northeast, Southwest, California, Pacific Northwest, and Hawaii. The U.S. Geological Survey's nonindigenous species database describes reproducing, thriving red-eared slider populations in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, a well established and invasive population across much of northern and central Maryland, and animals surviving winters as far north as Cumberland and Kennebec Counties in Maine, though reproduction there is unconfirmed. Nonindigenous populations in western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona appear established, with the Rio Grande drainage population in New Mexico described as probably invasive. In California and in Washington the species is not just established but explicitly called invasive, and in Washington it is named a potential threat to the western pond turtle, a declining species endemic to the Pacific states. Oregon is worth stating precisely, because the federal wording covers it in a shared sentence: USGS groups Oregon with California and Washington as well established in numerous localities, but reserves the phrase clearly invasive for the latter two. Oregon's own Department of Fish and Wildlife closes that gap independently, stating that the state has two native turtles, the western pond turtle and the western painted turtle, and naming the red-eared slider among the invasive, non-native turtles competing with them for food, habitat, and nesting sites. USGS notes that California's extensive network of manmade canals and irrigation ditches may be exactly what lets the species colonize new water so quickly.

Hawaii carries an established population. USGS states the red-eared slider is established in Hawaii, though it is unclear whether it is particularly invasive there. The specimen record behind that statement is specific: Kawainui Marsh and the Kaelepulu Stream drainage inland from Kailua on windward Oahu, collected in 1996, pathway recorded as released pet, status recorded as established, with the field note that hatchlings and juveniles are routinely observed. A second established Oahu record dates to 1997.

Two absences. Alaska is confirmed absent. Florida's state wildlife agency states plainly that the red-eared slider has been introduced via the pet trade to every state except Alaska, and no Alaska record appears in the federal nonindigenous occurrence data. The Mountain West is unconfirmed. USGS records that all red-eared sliders found in Colorado appear to be waifs from pet releases, which is why the standard reference on Colorado's herpetofauna does not list the species at all. Scattered released pets are not an established population, and no agency source confirms one in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, or Nevada. Treat the Mountain West as unconfirmed.

On the ground, the habitat point that matters is that manmade water counts. Sliders want quiet, sun-exposed water with soft substrate, aquatic plants, and abundant basking structure, typically about 2 to 3 feet deep. They occupy ponds, lakes, marshes, swamps, sloughs, oxbows, and slow rivers, and they occupy retention and stormwater ponds, irrigation ditches, canals, golf course water hazards, and city park ponds every bit as readily. They also tolerate brackish water. If there is a log, a stump, a rock, a dock edge, or an aerator pump breaking the surface, that is where the turtles will be.

Related Pests

American Alligator

Common Snapping Turtle

Life Cycle

Clutch size is reported across a wide spread rather than as one number. Federal compiled data give 2 to 23 eggs per clutch with as many as five clutches a year. University of Florida IFAS Extension gives 5 to 20 eggs and up to three active nests per female per year. A university museum account gives an average of 6 to 11 with a 2 to 20 range and one to four clutches. A directly measured Virginia sample of 36 clutches gave 6 to 15 eggs, averaging 10.1, with 71 percent of females double-clutching in a season. The compiled ranges are wider than any single measured population because clutch size scales with female body size and varies by latitude.

Age at maturity splits hard by sex, and the male figure is unusually well established. A peer-reviewed Illinois study dissected male sliders and used the presence of sperm as the definitive test rather than relying on size alone, finding all males mature by 98 millimeters plastron length at 3 to 5 years, generally with foreclaws over 7 millimeters. Females take considerably longer: 5 to 8 years by one account, about 8 to 9 years in a measured Virginia refuge population where the smallest mature female was 204 millimeters plastron length against 94 millimeters for the smallest mature male.

One genuinely unusual demographic finding. Studies of wild sliders have failed to detect any increase in mortality with age. That is not a claim of immortality, it is a statement that within the observed lifespan this animal does not show the rising death rate with age that most vertebrates do.

Mating

Mating. Mating happens in the water, and the male courts using dramatically elongated foreclaws, a secondary sexual character measured in one peer-reviewed Illinois study at more than double the foreclaw length of a similar-sized female. Seasonal timing is genuinely disputed. One university museum account gives April through late October, extending into December in ideal weather; Virginia's state wildlife agency describes spring, fall, and winter for the yellow-bellied slider and any season but summer for the red-eared slider. Males are the smaller sex and mature earlier.

Nesting Migration and Egg-Laying

Nesting Migration and Egg-Laying. This is why a pond slider turns up on a lawn, a driveway, or a road shoulder between April and July. University of Florida IFAS Extension records females traveling up to 1,500 feet from water in search of nesting ground, and a university museum account documents nesting journeys of more than 1.6 kilometers, roughly a mile. She will often dig one or more shallow trial nests before committing to the real one, which is a slider-specific sign worth recognizing. Nest construction usually happens at dusk and after dark. Clutch figures vary by source and by female size: UF IFAS gives 5 to 20 eggs and up to 3 active nests per female per year, federal compiled data give 2 to 23 eggs and as many as five clutches, and a measured Virginia sample gave 6 to 15 eggs averaging 10.1, with 71 percent of females producing two clutches in a season.

Eggs and Incubation

Eggs and Incubation. Incubation runs roughly 60 to 95 days, averaging about 75. A measured Virginia sample gives eggs averaging 34.5 by 23.2 millimeters and weighing 7.7 to 13.8 grams, with egg length, width, and mass all scaling with the size of the female, so a larger female lays larger eggs. Clutch size in that same sample did not track female size, which is a real and slightly counterintuitive split.

Hatchling

Hatchling. Hatchlings emerge with the brightest shell and skin markings they will ever have, green carapace and vivid yellow striping, and the postorbital patch that names each subspecies is at its clearest in juveniles. Virginia's state wildlife agency notes something specific about the timing: newly hatched young may stay in the nest until heavy rain loosens the encrusted soil above them, so emergence can be triggered by weather rather than by a date. Growth from nest emergence to the first winter measured 46 to 71 millimeters in a Virginia study.

Juvenile

Juvenile. Growth from age one to six averaged 13.1 millimeters a year in a Virginia study. The diet at this stage is markedly different from an adult's: young sliders are largely carnivorous, taking small worms and aquatic insects, and the shift toward plants comes later. Shell and head markings are still vivid, which makes this the easiest stage at which to tell a red-eared from a yellow-bellied slider.

Adult

Adult. Carapace length runs roughly 5 to over 11 inches by federal measurement, 125 to 289 millimeters, with University of Florida IFAS Extension giving 3 to 11 inches and noting that females are the larger sex while males typically stay under 10 inches. Males mature earlier and smaller: a peer-reviewed Illinois dissection study found all male sliders were sexually mature by 98 millimeters plastron length at 3 to 5 years old, while females in a Virginia refuge population matured at about 8 to 9 years. Wild lifespan reaches about 30 years in South Carolina populations, with a maximum captive record of 41.3 years, though both figures carry a data-quality caveat from their own sources. Old males frequently go melanistic and darken to nearly solid black, losing the red or yellow eye patch entirely, which is why a large dark slider can be genuinely hard to assign to a subspecies.

Identification

The postorbital patch

It is the whole subspecies identification, and it is visible from a distance in good light. The red-eared slider carries a unique broad red or orange stripe, rarely yellow, behind each eye. The yellow-bellied slider carries a large yellow blotch behind the eye that joins the neck stripe, most evident in juveniles and females. The Cumberland slider, restricted to eastern Tennessee and the far southwestern corner of Virginia, has a narrower yellow stripe behind each eye plus fewer and wider stripes on the legs, neck, and head.

Use the real size numbers

Federal data give a carapace length of 125 to 289 millimeters, about 5 to over 11 inches. University of Florida IFAS Extension gives 3 to 11 inches and adds the detail that matters for sexing an animal: females are the larger sex, and males typically do not exceed 10 inches. Virginia's state wildlife agency gives a US maximum of 11.4 inches for the yellow-bellied slider and a typical 5 to 8 inches for the red-eared slider, with a record of 11 and 3/8 inches.

Shell and body

The carapace is olive to brown or dark green with yellow markings, weakly keeled down the midline, with a slightly serrated or toothed rear margin. The plastron is yellow, which is where the yellow-bellied subspecies gets its name, and develops dark blotches with age; a yellow-bellied slider usually carries two solid black spots on the rear plastron. The skin is dark green to black with fine yellow striping.

Mature males by their front claws

Mature males are told by their front claws, not their size alone. Male sliders develop dramatically elongated foreclaws used in courtship, measured in one peer-reviewed study at more than double the length of a similar-sized female's above 100 millimeters plastron length. Mature males also carry longer tails. This is the most reliable field sexing character on the animal.

An old slider can be unidentifiable

An old slider can be genuinely unidentifiable, and that is normal rather than a bad look at it. In all three subspecies the distinctive head and shell pattern can be obscured in older, melanistic males, and Virginia's state wildlife agency states old individuals may be completely black. UF IFAS describes the same fading of both shell and head markings with age. If you cannot find a red or yellow patch on a large dark turtle, you have not necessarily misidentified it.

Cooters are the other confusion

Cooters are the other pond turtle people confuse with this one. The slider's carapace is rounder than a cooter's, and cooters run larger, to about 13 inches. Both bask communally on logs in the same water, and in the eastern Florida panhandle even the cooter species hybridize among themselves, so UF IFAS's own advice in that overlap zone is to just call them cooters rather than force a species. The slider's postorbital patch remains the fastest separator.

Snapping turtle: behavior settles it

Snapping turtle is the comparison that actually matters, and behavior settles it before you get close. A turtle basking on a log is a slider or a cooter. A common snapping turtle rarely basks. If you do see the animal itself, the snapping turtle has a disproportionately large head it cannot withdraw into the shell, a small cross-shaped plastron that leaves the limbs exposed, and a long tail carrying a saw-toothed row of raised scales. A slider has none of that and can pull fully into a complete plastron. This distinction is the difference between an animal that is not a bite risk and one that is, so it is worth settling first.

They interbreed where they meet

The two subspecies interbreed where they meet, and intermediate animals are a documented outcome. In parts of the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, released red-eared sliders and native yellow-bellied sliders produce intergrades with intermediate markings. An ambiguous eye patch in those areas may be exactly what it looks like. It is a conservation problem rather than an identification quirk.

Signs of Infestation

Prevention and When to Call a Pro

Never release a pet turtle

Never release an unwanted pet turtle into a pond, lake, canal, or creek. Nothing else matters more. Every serious problem attached to this species traces back to it: genetic swamping of native sliders, introduction of disease and parasites into wild turtle populations, competition with native turtles for food and basking sites, and in all three Southeast states researched here, a legal violation.

The genetic problem is real

It is specific, and it is the reason this species carries regulation at all. The U.S. Geological Survey states that the spread of red-eared sliders into southern states where the yellow-bellied slider is native has produced documented interbreeding between the two, compromising the genetic integrity of the native yellow-bellied slider. Florida's state wildlife agency states the same thing independently, listing hybridization and compromised genetic integrity of native yellow-bellied slider populations among the red-eared slider's threats. The Virginia Herpetological Society's account puts the sharpest version on the record: numerous Virginia populations are already made up of obvious crosses between the two subspecies, and the original Virginia yellow-bellied slider with its own color and pattern characteristics may not exist there after a few more decades except in isolated populations. A separate case exists outside the Southeast, where released red-eared sliders in New Mexico hybridize with the Big Bend slider.

Use the legal rehoming route

Use it instead. Florida runs an Exotic Pet Amnesty Program and a Request to Rehome process, and red-eared sliders there may only be rehomed to permitted individuals. Where a state has no amnesty program, a herpetological society, a licensed reptile rescue, a veterinarian, or the state wildlife agency is the right call. A pond is not.

Do not buy a hatchling

Understand why the small ones are the problem. Federal regulation 21 CFR 1240.62 has made it unlawful since 1975 to sell or distribute viable turtle eggs or live turtles with a carapace length under 4 inches, with narrow exceptions for research and education. The rule exists because small turtles are the ones children handle and mouth. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention credits the ban with preventing an estimated 100,000 cases of turtle-associated salmonellosis in children per year, but the problem has come back: 15 multistate outbreaks occurred between 2006 and 2014, and in 2012 alone eight outbreaks produced 473 reported illnesses at an estimated 2.8 million dollars in medical costs. Among ill people whose turtle size was known, 88 percent had a turtle under 4 inches, meaning an illegally sold animal. CDC's guidance is blunt: do not buy turtles with shells less than 4 inches long, including from online retailers.

Why the 4 inch rule backfired

That 4 inch rule is also the reason released adult sliders exist in the first place. A coin-sized hatchling bought at a flea market grows into an 8 to 11 inch adult that can live 30 years. The gap between what someone thought they were buying and what they end up with is the mechanism behind nearly every released pet turtle in a public pond.

Treat any turtle as Salmonella

Treat any turtle, wild or pet, as a Salmonella source and wash afterward. Turtles of any size can carry it. One further finding comes from a single source: federal data record that turtle farming and ranching conditions for the pet trade are often extremely septic and that heavy antibiotic use at US turtle hatcheries has given rise to more antibiotic-resistant Salmonella strains. Treat that as documented rather than settled, and wash your hands either way.

Do not remove sliders for fish

Do not shoot or remove sliders to protect pond fish. University of Florida IFAS Extension addresses this head on: sliders are destroyed by pond owners who believe the turtles will eat all the fish, and they will not. Young sliders eat worms and insects; adults shift largely to plants. The same correction applies to cooters.

Take out the basking structure

If basking turtles are genuinely unwanted, take out the basking structure rather than the turtles. Sliders concentrate on logs, stumps, rocks, dock edges, and aerator pumps, and pile up when haul-out space is short. Removing structure changes the habitat rather than the animals. State the tradeoff honestly though: basking is thermoregulation, worth at least 10 degrees C of body temperature over the surrounding water, so stripping every haul-out site degrades the pond for native turtles too.

Leave a nesting female alone

She is on a short trip and will finish and go back to the water. Interfering with her achieves nothing except stressing the animal.

Verify your own state rule

Verify the rules for your own state before moving, keeping, or giving away any turtle, because these three Southeast states have three genuinely different regimes. In Florida, the red-eared slider is a Conditional species under Chapter 68-5 of the Florida Administrative Code and is listed as Invasive Nonnative. Animals held before July 1, 2007 may be kept without a permit, but Floridians may not acquire one as a pet after that date without a Conditional, Prohibited, and Nonnative Species Permit, which requires an indoor tank or an outdoor enclosure with a containment barrier secured at least 6 inches below ground, an inspection by an FWC Captive Wildlife officer for outdoor enclosures, and destruction of any eggs on a daily basis. Albino and amelanistic animals are exempt from the permit requirement. FWC Rule 68-5.001 prohibits releasing any non-native animal in Florida, and Florida Statute 379.231 makes it unlawful to release within the state any species not native to it. Native Florida sliders are separately protected, with a take limit of one per person per day from the wild and no commercial use.

South Carolina caps possession

South Carolina caps native turtle possession and criminalizes both nonnative release and native re-homing. Act 177, signed September 28, 2020, set personal possession limits of five yellow-bellied sliders and five common snapping turtles, subject to an aggregate limit of ten native turtles total. The same Act made it illegal to release or allow the escape of any nonnative wildlife in the state, a misdemeanor carrying penalties up to 2,500 dollars, where before there had been no restriction or penalty at all for most nonnative releases. State regulation goes further and prohibits selling, purchasing, trading, exchanging, bartering, exporting, shipping, transferring, or re-homing any native reptile or amphibian, with defined exceptions including sale of yellow-bellied and snapping turtles from certified aquaculture facilities and private ponds. Handing a native slider to a neighbor is a regulated transfer in South Carolina, not a favor.

Georgia caps it at ten

Georgia caps possession at ten and has a specific mechanism for the private-pond case. Possessing more than ten freshwater turtles of any combination requires a commercial turtle farming permit. There is no closed season for freshwater turtle harvest, but taking state or federally protected species is prohibited, and collecting native freshwater turtle eggs from the wild is unlawful. For exactly this situation, the state may issue a catch out authorization for private ponds that lets a licensed nuisance wildlife control operator remove native freshwater turtles above the normal limits. A nuisance wildlife control permit holder may capture, possess, or transport native freshwater turtles but may not hold them more than 72 hours. Releasing a captive wild animal is separately unlawful under Georgia code 27-5-7, and Georgia DNR's own public messaging is that it cannot emphasize enough how important it is to never release non-native species in the state.

Who to Call, and When

Call any time removal, relocation, or transfer off the property is under consideration, because all three states above regulate at least one of possession, transfer, or release and none of them permits an unrestricted do-it-yourself move. In Georgia specifically, a private pond with more turtles than the owner wants is precisely what the catch out authorization exists for, and it runs through a licensed operator rather than the homeowner. Call if the animal cannot be identified confidently, since a slider, a cooter, a snapping turtle, and in Gulf drainages an alligator snapping turtle can share one watershed and the last of those carries stronger protection in several states, which makes misidentification a legal question rather than only a biological one. And call, or contact the state wildlife agency, if a pet slider needs rehoming, since that is itself a permitted process in Florida and a regulated transfer in South Carolina. Rules vary by state and change over time, so verify locally rather than assuming any of the three examples above applies where you are.

State-regulated - verify locally

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it illegal to release my pet red-eared slider into a local pond?

In Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia, yes. Florida prohibits releasing any non-native animal under FWC Rule 68-5.001 and under Florida Statute 379.231. South Carolina's Act 177 made release or escape of any nonnative wildlife illegal, a misdemeanor with penalties up to 2,500 dollars. Georgia makes releasing a captive wild animal unlawful under state code 27-5-7. Rules vary by state, so verify locally, but there is no state where releasing a pet turtle is the right answer. Use a state amnesty or rehoming program, a herpetological society, or a licensed rescue instead.

Pond Slider (Red-Eared and Yellow-Bellied Slider)

Seasonal Timeline

Where They're Found

Related Pests

Life Cycle

Mating

Nesting Migration and Egg-Laying

Eggs and Incubation

Hatchling

Juvenile

Adult

Identification

The postorbital patch

Use the real size numbers

Shell and body

Mature males by their front claws

An old slider can be unidentifiable

Cooters are the other confusion

Snapping turtle: behavior settles it

They interbreed where they meet

Signs of Infestation

Several on a log, sliding off together

A stack of turtles

The patch, readable through binoculars

One crossing a lawn from April to July

Shallow abandoned digs next to a real nest

No audible or olfactory signs

Not a sign: fewer stocked fish

Prevention and When to Call a Pro

Never release a pet turtle

The genetic problem is real

Use the legal rehoming route

Do not buy a hatchling

Why the 4 inch rule backfired

Treat any turtle as Salmonella

Do not remove sliders for fish

Take out the basking structure

Leave a nesting female alone

Verify your own state rule

South Carolina caps possession

Georgia caps it at ten

Who to Call, and When

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it illegal to release my pet red-eared slider into a local pond?

What is the difference between a red-eared slider and a yellow-bellied slider?

Why do turtles stack on top of each other on a log?

Will the turtles in my pond eat all my fish?

Can I catch a slider from my pond and keep it as a pet?

Is the turtle in my yard a snapping turtle?

How long do pond sliders live?

Sources

Image Credits

Related Pests