Turtle Rescue and Rehoming

13/10/2025

Never a dull moment here at Turtle Rescue. It's a really busy time of year preparing to move turtles back into ponds, cleaning the outside ponds and filters after winter and caring for the multitude of turtles and their needs. There's been a new stray turtle found on a beach, I ended up with a badly infected hand/cellulitis from a dog bite (not my dog), I've had some T-shirts printed for the volunteers by the fabulous team at Print Craft Services, the generous staff at Northwood Petstock sent me another donation of turtle food, and after appearing on 7 Sharp, a viewer contacted Environment Canterbury, stating they had seen illegal plants (hornwort) in a turtle tank, so I had a visit from Ecan and Niwa! They investigated every pond, tank, Aquatic plant, buckets of water....and the conclusion was....the viewer had seen a background picture on the back of a tank :) :) It was great to meet the lovely people from Ecan and Niwa though :)

08/10/2025

Darcey was off his food while he was shedding, but now he's back to his adorable self. :) He loves life, despite his deformities caused from living in a frog tank for the first 3 years of his life. He only has one partial lung which is why he swims sideways as he's not balanced. He's been with me since the earthquakes in 2011. So I estimate he could be close to 25 years old now. Remarkably his bright red stripe has never faded. Nowadays I find hand feeding him the frozen Hot House turtle food works best as he struggles to get food from the bottom of the tank :)

27/09/2025

Last Monday I had to take 2 turtles to see the lovely Tyrenne at McMaster and Heap Vet and sadly they both required euthanasia. Then a quick trip home to collect 7 turtles and head up to do a presentation at 'the Homework Club,' Cashmere Primary School, holiday programme. The children were very engaged and asked lots of great questions. Check out the letters that some of the children wrote while I was packing up. Happy holidays children!

27/09/2025

There's always plenty to do at Turtle Rescue. I had the privilege of meeting about 100 primary school children at Addington school during 2 Monday visits. They were studying ' "Under the Sea". Freshwater turtles don't live in the sea of course, but the children loved meeting the turtles, hearing their stories and learning about their care and needs.

24/09/2025

Lets see if this works? Thanks for the recording Rochelle :)

19/09/2025

Not sure if this will work.... You may need to login? Story is the first one of the programme :)

Join Hilary Barry and Jeremy Wells for Seven Sharp, weekdays at 7pm.

19/09/2025

Well, there was lots of pre recording of turtles and then it was time for the interview. Fascinating standing for about 15 minutes with an ear piece in listening to the pre recording of the weather etc. I'll never view the weather quite the same again! 🙂 Then my piece seemed to be about 1 minute and I hardly said anything. Turbo was a bit wriggly as I had been holding her for the 15 minutes waiting for the time for our bit to be recorded. Lovely to meet Jendy and the camera guy. They loved all the turtles 🙂 7 Sharp tonight 🙂

18/09/2025

The turtles and l will feature on TV 1on 7 sharp program tonight. Talking about the stray turtle population.

31/08/2025

Awww, look what I got today! Squirtle came here for a couple of weeks from a local primary school while his cracked tank went for repairs. He was collected today and I received these fantastic thankyous and a yummy box of chocolates :) Squirtle will be back for the Christmas holidays, so he's pretty familiar with hanging out here at Turtle Rescue :) He's a lovely social boy and lives in a tank in the school library where he gets lots of love and attention :)

26/08/2025

It's always nice to pop home from work in my lunchbreak and spot the turtles out basking in the early spring sunshine. 🌞 Some pics taken from a distance so as not to disturb the turtles, so not very clear. The longnecks enjoy the pond cover being opened up so they get direct sunlight. Rocky (black male) , the 2 reeves girls and RES females are starting to become more active as spring approaches. Still won't be feeding them until end of October tho. 🐢😁

24/08/2025

It was a great day at Pet central, Hornby. I have to mention how friendly and helpful all the staff were. Just lovely! They ran a fabulous raffle, with all the proceeds coming to Turtle Rescue and rehoming. Thank-you! Lots of people enjoyed hanging out with turtles and having cuddles. It's exhausting standing and 'talking turtle' for 4 hours, but it's always great to meet new people and educate about appropriate turtle care and environment. Managed to get a few pics during a quiet moment :) Permission given by parents to allow for children to appear in the pics :)

23/08/2025

Mozzie, Valetta and others will be at Hornby Pet Central today from 10.30 till 2.30pm. 5a Chappie Place, Hornby. Come and check out the sea turtle shell, turtle eggs, turtle x-rays, photos.... and say hi to us there :)