Newly Hatched Soft-Bodied Turtles.

Abe V Rotor

Parks and Wildlife Nature Center, Diliman, QC


Welcome to the world soft bodied hatchlings,
Shelless and boundless and free;
You will be wandering to where you shall be,
By fate and not by your yearnings.

And learn the ways of the kind or dowager,
In both their roles you shall play
Neither as friend nor foe by night and day
Wearing a cloak and a dagger. ~

The soft-bodied turtle, contrary to impression, is a ferocious predator on land and in water. It is armed with razor-sharp and pliers-tight beak. It feeds of fish, worms and insects, dead or alive. It is omnivorous in the absence of its preferred preys. These hatchings came from eggs in a nest of dried leaves Leo Carlo, my youngest son found along the banks of the lake of the Parks and Wildlife Nature Center in QC. For sometime he took good care of them until they were weaned. Out of the six, only a pair made it to the La Mesa Watershed not far from where we live. One thing we learned from the soft-bodied turtle is that they are wild. They refuse to be domesticated - which is an asset of the species for its survival and in defending its natural habitat.