An eastern Ontario woman says she’s devastated by the disappearance of her family’s longtime snapping turtle — while wildlife experts say it’s a good reminder that keeping wild turtles as pets is illegal and harmful to the overall population.
Maureen Fennelly of Brockville, Ont., has been caring for Razor the turtle for several years, after her son Joshua first came across the quarter-sized baby snapper in 2009 while it was crossing a local road with an injured tail.
“[I] called the SPCA,” he said via text. “But they [said] they would just put the turtle down as they do not handle turtle rehabilitation.”
Joshua Fennelly named the snapper Razor, after the mutant villain Rahzar from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.
He brought it home and kept it for eight years, until he got kittens and the turtle moved in with his mother.
“We put him in the bathtub with rocks and then I would feed him with a pair of tweezers,” Maureen Fennelly said. “I’d say, ‘Good morning, Razor, my baby!’ I could actually take my hands and just scratch his neck.
“He never knew how to bite or to snap in any manner because he was so spoon-fed.”
Razor had the run of the place, could climb stairs, was taken outside for walks and was shown off to kids during the COVID-19 pandemic, she said.
But he went missing in early September, she said, while in the care of her ex-partner.
Fennelly said she’s since spent day and night searching for him, even wading into one creek until she got a foot infection.
“He meant everything to me,” she said. “This has been so devastating.”
