Cause of Injury: Humans

a short essay

It’s not like me to miss a wildlife sighting. Especially when the furry, feathered, scaled or scuted visitor is right here in my own yard.

It’s true, I have been distracted lately. While walking the old dog that morning, I was likely worried about health issues and family, instead of noticing the cool morning air, blooming asters, and bird song. 

In fact, I thought I had kicked a rock while stumbling in the driveway. It shot across the concrete and spun like a glass bottle. Except, it wasn’t a rock. It was an Eastern box turtle.

The turtle was small, about the size of a clementine. I turned it over and with my hand supporting its plastron, moved it from the driveway to the safety of the leaves in a nearby flower bed.

Like fingerprints, the patterns on an Eastern box turtle’s shell are unique to that individual.

After walking our other dog, a very curious Australian shepherd, I came back outside to check on the turtle (and get a photo). The morning sun was streaming through the swamp milkweed to the leaf litter below, where the near-camouflaged turtle was right where I had left it. The shell was partly open, but its inhabitant was still in hiding.

I gave it time to recover from our startling encounter in the driveway. When I returned about 15 minutes later, I found it with its neck craned and eyes nearly squinted shut, seemingly enjoying the sun’s warmth. 

Here is the box turtle recovering from our startling encounter in the driveway.

I crept around as close as possible to take a photo with my phone. That’s when I noticed something was off. 

“Wait, does this turtle have two heads,” I asked myself outloud. Before I could get a closer look, the turtle retreated back into its shell.

I waited a half-hour or more for the turtle to re-emerge. This time, I kept my distance and viewed it with my binoculars. Thankfully, the lump I noticed was not a second head, but what I later determined was likely an abscess on its tympanic membrane or eardrum.

This photo shows the lump on the side of its head I determined was an abscess.

I knew it could not be good. Not only was it likely painful, but also, from what I read, an aural abscess would not resolve on its own. In fact, it could get bigger and the infection could spread to the turtle’s respiratory tract. A larger abscess could also hinder the ability for its shell to properly close.

I covered the turtle with a few larger oak leaves to give a sense of shelter. The turtle dug in further and waited out the day beneath the milkweed while I worried about what to do.

This is not the first time my husband and I have encountered injured wildlife in our yard; a semi-wooded half-acre with ample habitat. There have been baby rabbits, voles, chipmunks, and songbirds, and once, a flying squirrel. 

Sadly, most were beyond saving (because of roaming cats) and given a quiet place to pass away. The flying squirrel, which turned out to be a baby, did have a happier ending, thanks to my husband's willingness to drive it to a local wildlife rehabilitation specialist. I happened to know the rehabber, after interviewing her years ago for a feature story about rehabilitating injured and orphaned squirrels. 

Like most rehabbers here in North Carolina, she only works with mammals, so finding someone that would agree to take in a reptile took most of the day. I finally got lucky after texting a rehabber listed on NCWildlife.org. After sending a few photos of the turtle, she finally replied, bring it to me.

Most rehabbers do this tireless, thankless work in their own home. This particular rehabber was affiliated with the Carolina Wildlife Conservation Center, which I discovered, is only about 30 miles from our house.

So, I padded a shoe box with a faded orange kitchen towel and went outside to find the turtle. It took a bit of sifting through the leaves, but she was found not far from where I had put her earlier that morning. (At this point, I had determined that based on the turtle’s bronze eye color, it was likely a female). I loosely covered her with the towel, hoping it would make her feel more secure, set the box in the front passenger seat of my car, and pulled up the destination on Google maps.

Safely “boxed” for transport to Carolina Wildlife Conservation Center

GPS took me along the back roads, which were lined with stands of blackberry, Queen Anne’s Lace, and knee-high daisies. I kept the music low, so as not to disturb her and apologized for any bumps and potholes I hit along the way. 

I thought Daisy would be a good name, if she was in fact a female. If the turtle turned out to be a male, I could call him Avett. It may sound silly, thinking of names while en route to the center, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this turtle had crossed my path for a reason. She needed help. I needed to give her a name.

When I arrived at the gate, I texted my contact to let her know I was there. She instructed me to come to the welcome center where a volunteer would meet me. As I drove down the pine tree-lined gravel road, I passed a sign certifying the land around me as a wildlife habitat. 

Immediately, I felt a sense of relief. My little turtle was going to be in good hands. The welcome center was a cheery, yellow building, brightly painted with wild animals–fox, groundhog, opossum, raccoon, and a box turtle. 

The volunteer pulled up on a golf cart. She was wearing a floppy sun hat and a T-shirt with many of the same animals painted on the outside of the welcome center. She seemed in a hurry to get back to the main building, so there wasn’t much time for chatting. I thanked her at least seven times while filling out the intake paperwork.

“The vet is actually here tonight, so she should be able to take a look at it,” the volunteer said, peering into the box to get a look at the newest resident. “Wow, it is small!” 

She transferred the turtle to a plastic box for transport and loaded it up beside her on the golf cart. I felt happy, but also sad to think the turtle was so far away from its home. 

The Welcome Center at Carolina Wildlife Conservation Center is a cheery sight, especially when arriving with a wounded animal in need of care.

Later that evening, I checked my inbox and there was an email from the center. I learned her intake number was 2024-0755. The email also contained a link for updates on her progress. 

The diagnosis: aural abscess, cause of injury unknown. The staff had also identified her as female. And an infant. Her name: #755.

While periodically checking for updates on #755, I realized the center had an overwhelming number of wild animals in its care; 183 at the time of writing this essay. A lot of the animals were orphans, mostly opossums, raccoons, and Eastern cottontails. 

Some were so tiny upon arrival, they had to be placed in an incubator and kept warm. Several of the squirrels and raccoons had fallen from trees, a few from trees being cut down. Others, like an Eastern chipmunk, were victims of attack from cats and dogs. 

The more I dug into the medical charts, the more I realized that the majority of these animals were there because of humans. Like the Virginia opossum, struck by a vehicle, and another emaciated and dehydrated after being found in a trap. A juvenile black racer that had been entangled in netting is being treated for lacerations, infection, and being compacted. An Eastern box turtle presented with its shell removed down to the spine and vertebrae exposed after being run over by a lawnmower. 

So many are the victims of vehicle collisions: a black rat snake with a fractured jaw and skull; a yellow-bellied slider with a soft-tissue laceration on its tail, and another with a fractured carapace; an Eastern painted turtle found with five eggs and a fractured clavicle and upper left side of its shell; a common snapping turtle with loss of scutes and soft-tissue damage, and another with a fractured mandible. The list goes on.

Which brings me to #755, my baby box turtle with an aural abscess. Apparently, box turtles, both wild and in captivity, are susceptible to infections of the middle ear, which over time can cause an abscess to form. 

Ear infections in turtles have been tied to a deficiency in vitamin K, which is necessary for maintaining health in the lining of the middle ear. According to research, exposure to organochlorine, a chemical found in pesticides, blocks vitamin A receptors in the body, thus putting turtles at increased risk for ear infections and potentially debilitating abscesses.

This new information made me sad, and also angry. Our “lawn” is a mix of wild violets, dandelion, plantain, and whatever remains of grass planted when the house was first built. We do not use chemicals of any kind, much less pesticides and herbicides. But, our next door neighbors do.

I have two bumper stickers on my car: one reads, “I brake for snakes” and the other, “I brake for turtles.” I would now like to add to the list, squirrels, groundhogs, turkeys, opossum, deer and any other animal for that matter. Hell, I once ran my car off the road trying to miss a butterfly.

So, as much as it saddens and weighs on me to read about all these injuries and illnesses brought on by humans, it is hopeful to read these statistics shared by the Carolina Wildlife Conservation Center: of the 8,416 patients cared for at their facility (since 2019), 3,777 were successfully rehabilitated and released. 297 have been released so far this year, two of which have been released since I brought in #755.

My box turtle must seem pretty small in the midst of so many animals. I can’t imagine how overwhelmed the staff and volunteers must be, so I will try to be patient when it comes to care updates. I’m hopeful that she will make it, and have even made a donation to help cover her care costs. Mostly, I’m grateful for the opportunity to help something smaller than me, which in turn, helped me.