Cop Walks into Street To Save Stranded Turtle, but Turtle Resists Arrest
You know, humans don’t necessarily understand turtles. I’m sitting here in the weeds after a close shave with a uniformed officer of the law, so I just wanted to set the record straight.
As a representative of my species, I should point out that I’m something called an “amniote.” Just ask the National Geographic Kids website, which explains that we turtles actually breathe air and lay our eggs on land.
I mean sure, many of us live somewhere near the water. National Geographic will also tell you that we’re one of the oldest reptile groups in the world, after all.
Specifically, we date back more than 200 million years. So the LiveScience website is right to remind you that turtles were technically around in the dinosaur era.
After all those eons, we’ve kind of figured out our likes and dislikes, so to speak. And what we generally like is being left to ourselves.
Don’t just take my word for it — even Encyclopedia Britannica will tell you that turtles aren’t too social. We’re fine hanging out with other turtles, mind you, but anything beyond that makes us feel a little twitchy.
So there I was, sitting in the road a short while ago, minding my own business. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a well-meaning cop started walking up behind me.
Okay, in all fairness, I was hanging out on the double yellow lines. From what I can tell, areas like this tend to attract a lot of fast-moving machinery.
You’ve seen what I’m talking about, right? I think they’re called cars and trucks, and they’re huge.
I can generally understand why it’s hard for these behemoths to detect a turtle in the road. You’ve probably noticed we’re pretty low to the ground.
So back to this dutiful police officer. He comes striding up, looking quite purposeful and efficient, like he’s about to move me or issue a citation.
I mean, what would you do? Sometimes I’m glad we have that protective shell as part of our turtle exoskeleton, for crying out loud.
But in this particular case, it seemed like my best bet was to high-tail it out of there.
So I ran.
Laugh if you want, but even Animal Planet will tell you that we turtles can haul it if we feel threatened. I think I was justified too, and hear me out on this.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, 129 out of roughly 300 turtle and tortoise species are considered vulnerable or endangered in the world today. I suspect that nice-looking police officer was only trying to help, but you can never be too sure.
In any event, he looked awfully surprised to see me sprint. And I’m pretty proud to say the Facebook video ABC News posted is getting a ton of laughs and likes.
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