It is May 23rd, so Happy World Turtle Day!

I saw a good number of turtles when I was in the Everglades, but didn’t realize until afterwards that there are apparently 16 turtle species found in Everglades National Park.

One of the more common ones seemed to be this type of turtle, which as far as I can tell, is the Florida Cooter.

While this turtle was safe in a National Park, this species is one considered so plentiful in the USA that it can be caught in the wild and exported for a life as someone’s pet or someone’s dinner in places like China and Taiwan. Did you know that millions of turtles are raised on farms in the US and caught in the wild for human consumption?