Turtle Rescue and Rehoming

Turtle Rescue and Rehoming Rescue, rehabilitation, adoptions, advice on turtle care. ChCh, New Zealand. Donate or volunteer Rescue, re-homing and advice on caring for turtles.

Based in Christchurch, New Zealand.If you need help and advice with a sick turtle, let us know! Many turtles are available for adoption. Donations ( with tax receipt) to Nature by Design Ltd * Ref TurtleRescue* 02-0828-0091088-083. You need to email Donna with your name and address so you can receive a receipt. OR ANZ "Turtle Rescue" 010798 0096119 00 if you don't need tax receipt. All donations gratefully received. Volunteers needed to help with tank maintenance etc. 021 2020 185

Can you help? I've been contacted by Cheree who has inherited a female turtle from her ex house. It's in a small tank fu...
03/01/2026

Can you help? I've been contacted by Cheree who has inherited a female turtle from her ex house. It's in a small tank full of pebbles and a small internal filter. Only a rock for basking. Cheree is in the Hamilton, Waikato area. I'm looking for anyone with sound turtle experience who can support Cheree to set things up properly for the turtle. Or is anyone in Waikato able to loan or sell her a good sized tank ? Or a canister filter? UV light? Cheree is working towards upgrading the environment for the turtle (who she believed was a male until I told her its likely a female). Turtle has been supersized so the scutes are thick, pointed and unable to shed due to growing too fast. This will take years to rectify, but will improve.
If you can lend her anything, or help in any other way, please contact me on 021 2020 185 and I'll pass on her cell phone number for you. Even someone to build an above tank basking area to put on the existing tank for now would be fantastic.
Thanks turtle family :)

TURTLE FOUND; BADLY INJUREDSadly an older, adult male turtle was found in the middle of the street outside 56 Walters Rd...
03/01/2026

TURTLE FOUND; BADLY INJURED
Sadly an older, adult male turtle was found in the middle of the street outside 56 Walters Rd in Marshland, Christchurch on Sunday 28th Dec.
He had horrific, life-threatening injuries and was deceased shortly after the people had found him.
Just putting this out there in case someone in the area had lost their turtle. It's a rural road.
Turtle was buried by one of the people involved in the situation.
I'm so sorry for your loss, never easy losing a loved family pet, regardless of the species.
PIC OF MY OLD BOY, ROCKY, FOR ATTENTION:

Honu's got a new home for Christmas! Honu had a rough start to life. He was rescued at around 5 years of age from a poor...
11/12/2025

Honu's got a new home for Christmas! Honu had a rough start to life. He was rescued at around 5 years of age from a poorly kept, small tank where he was fed red meat and cat biscuits :( :( He spent the next 15 years living in a home-made pond and was loved and well cared for. Sadly his owner went into palliative care so he was surrendered here a few months ago. Honu has ended up having the best Christmas ever! He's been adopted by Flynn who has taken the time to research all about Honus needs, set up a fantastic, large turtle tank and will ensure Honu gets high quality, calcium rich turtle foods like Hot House, Sera and Flukers brands, alongside his aquatic plants. Flynn is already very experienced with keeping fish and other reptiles, so Honu will have lots of interesting things to look at from his large tank. If you can give another turtle a new home, please let me know. There's plenty more here waiting for their forever home :)

Stray male turtle found near Bengal Drive, PMH area. 14cm carapace length, multiple micro-ulcers over plastron and obvio...
01/12/2025

Stray male turtle found near Bengal Drive, PMH area. 14cm carapace length, multiple micro-ulcers over plastron and obvious stunted growth with bridge scutes curved upwards and thickened scutes. Currently under SPCA care. If he's yours, let me know.

UPDATE: Looks like turtle is sorted at this stage :) Plenty more at Turtle Rescue needing adoption to ponds tho if you c...
28/11/2025

UPDATE: Looks like turtle is sorted at this stage :) Plenty more at Turtle Rescue needing adoption to ponds tho if you can help.
:) URGENT: Help needed to rehome a stray female RES in Hamilton. Turtle was found on Silverdale road opposite orchard park and the Tainui development.
If you can help in any way, please make contact and I'll give you the name of the finder :)

The weather has been so warm! It means we've been able to transfer many of the turtles from tanks into the outside ponds...
27/11/2025

The weather has been so warm! It means we've been able to transfer many of the turtles from tanks into the outside ponds. A couple of weeks ago we did the post winter check of the 20 adult female turtles at the Fernside pond. There were some campers onsite who were fascinated by the turtles and their beautiful home. Cherie had turtles in named cardboard boxes ready for me to weigh, measure and check their overall health when I arrived. 2 turtles have come back to my place for some extra care. The rest were popped back in the pond after it was cleaned out. The UV bulb has been changed so we expect the algae in the water to decrease again. The turtles and fish don't mind it, but we like to see the turtles clearly :) :)
Some turtles and I will be at Animates Tower Junction on Sunday between 10am and 2pm if you want to come and say hi :)

Gorgeous Brighteyes had a trip to the vet tonight and had minor surgery to remove an abscess from the side of her head. ...
04/11/2025

Gorgeous Brighteyes had a trip to the vet tonight and had minor surgery to remove an abscess from the side of her head. WARNING don't look at pics if you're concerned about needles, scalpels and wounds.
Brighteyes arrived here as a stray 11 years ago. She had thick, built-up scutes but they were flexible due to lack of calcium. She's kept excellent health and been living in a pond for the past 11 years. There's no known cause for why she's developed the abscess, but hopefully she will recover quickly and can move back to the pond in a few weeks.
I was holding Brighteyes head/neck for the procedure and trying to manouvre the camera and take photos with my left hand without really looking through the view finder. The things we do! :)

Never a dull moment here at Turtle Rescue. It's a really busy time of year preparing to move turtles back into ponds, cl...
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 :)

Darcey was off his food while he was shedding, but now he's back to his adorable self. :) He loves life, despite his def...
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 :)

Last Monday I had to take 2 turtles to see the lovely Tyrenne at McMaster and Heap Vet and sadly they both required euth...
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!

There's always plenty to do at Turtle Rescue. I had the privilege of meeting about 100 primary school children at Adding...
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 :)

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Rescue, re-homing and advice on caring for turtles. Based in Christchurch, New Zealand. If you need help and advice with a sick turtle, let us know! Many turtles available for adoption. Donations ( with tax receipt) to Nature by Design Ltd * Ref TurtleRescue* 02-0828-0091088-083. You need to email Donna ( [email protected] ) with your name and address so you can receive a receipt. OR ANZ "Turtle Rescue" 010798 0096119 00 if you don't need tax receipt. OR via www.totallytanked.co.nz/turtle-rescue for pay pal account. All donations gratefully received. Volunteers needed to help with tank maintenance etc. 021 2020 185