Terrapin at the Crab Crib
I ran the Charm City Reptile and Amphibian Rescue for 14 years (no longer in operation).
A person called from the Crab Crib, a restaurant located in a little strip mall next door to my vet’s office. They purchased several bushels of crabs and found a live turtle in the bushel with their load of crabs. It turned out to be a diamondback terrapin.
The old gal was missing part of one foot, but it was well healed over, not a result from being in a bushel of crabs. I’m sure it wasn’t comfortable though!
Often times terrapins are found mixed in with bushels of crabs, and usually the turtles die from lack of oxygen. But there is an easy way to stop that from happening. It’s also required in Maryland. A little piece of plastic, which costs about 50¢ at the time of this writing, fits on the crab pot to keep terrapins from getting trapped. You can also make them yourself from metal wire. Directions are available online.
The Crab Crib people called my vet’s office since it was next door and asked for help for the animal. The vet’s office gave my number to the restaurant worker.
I never dealt with wild animals as I was not a licensed rehabber. However, I had a permit issued from the state that allowed me to temporarily hold onto wild reptiles or amphibians until I found a suitable place for them. The state often used this as a reason to drop off animals to me and then tell me who was allowed to adopt them (usually it was an institution like the Baltimore’s National Aquarium or the Maryland Zoo).
The restaurant people took the terrapin next door to the vet’s office to wait for me. I asked about where they got the crabs. I would never release an animal or give the animal to someone to release if it didn’t come from Maryland. There are only two places where diamondback terrapins are found, in Maryland and North Carolina. The restaurant owner told me he got the crabs from North Carolina.
My vet looked over the terrapin and deemed it a healthy female, albeit with a stump leg.
Note: You should never release an animal that was kept as a pet into the wild! They can spread disease and/or parasites into wild populations. And you should never release a non-native animal into the wild for those reasons and more. For example, they can outcompete native species for food. It’s also illegal.
It just so happened that Dave Lee, of the Tortoise Reserve in North Carolina, was coming to Baltimore to give a talk. A foster person (who had the same DNR permit as I did) kept the terrapin until Dave got to town.
Dave went back home. Making a big deal about getting this terrapin in Maryland, he let the media know about it. He ended up with a nice newspaper article about releasing the terrapin into its home of the brackish water of North Carolina. Yours truly, my vet’s participation and the Crab Crib didn’t make it into the article.
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