Western Painted turtle

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Brian Eagar
Posts: 430
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 12:59 pm

Western Painted turtle

Post by Brian Eagar »

So I've been trapsing around creeks and ponds my whole life in Utah and I've never come across a turtle (which is as it should be seeing as how we have no native turtles). However I've always been a big turtle fan and having lived in the Eastern US for some of my childhood I miss seeing them.
Not only that, we have plenty of introduced populations of red eared sliders and painted turtles in the state. I anticipate that will only continue to happen as more people have pet turtles and opt to let them go in the local fishing pond when they get sick of them. That is illegal of course but it hasn't stopped anyone so far.

Anyhow I was out fishing with some cubscouts last week when one of them spotted a turtle at a pond I'd been to many many times in the past.
I didn't believe him until he spotted it again. It turned out to be this big adult western painted turtle:
Image
chrysemys_picta_kaysville_08-23-2013_140845 by brianeagar, on Flickr

Image
chrysemys_picta_kaysville_08-23-2013 by brianeagar, on Flickr
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