Milana Petruk has loved turtles since childhood and has been caring for these reptiles at the Moscow Zoo as a volunteer for 10 years. Since Milana is also a specialist in web design, it was not difficult for her to create her own website about her favorite freshwater fish, which in a few years became a full-fledged platform for communication and coordination of the work of volunteers from all over Russia and beyond.
Currently, the Turtle Rescue Team is a group of turtle lovers and owners from different cities and countries, more than eight thousand users are registered on the site's forum. It would seem that the most ordinary users, but hundreds of saved turtle lives are behind their work.
There are 4 species of turtles in Russia: Nikolsky's red-book Mediterranean turtle and 3 species of aquatic turtles: marsh, red-book Far Eastern and Caspian. Most often, people encounter Nikolsky's turtle in nature in the Krasnodar Territory and the marsh turtle in central and southern Russia.
One of the activities of the Turtle Rescue Team is precisely the return of reptiles to their natural habitats. For several years, Milana Petruk and her team have returned more than 400 turtles to nature, Zooafisha writes about the work of the Turtle Assistance Team.
"Someone picks up a turtle because they do not know that they are found in this region, and thinks that they are saving it, while someone specially collects turtles and sells them for profit. In both cases, natural populations suffer. When kept in captivity, turtles are unlikely to bring offspring, but they will certainly "earn" a curved shell due to improper conditions of detention and lack of wintering, as well as many other diseases from beriberi to kidney failure," says Milana Petruk.
The Milan team is helped to release turtles by many volunteers from different cities of Russia, who collect and send turtles, overexpose them and take them to release. It is not uncommon for volunteers to ask for help from law enforcement agencies to combat the illegal sale of turtles, including Red Book turtles, in pet stores, on pet markets and on the Internet. Under the careful supervision of Milana Petruk is also the adoption of sick reptiles in good hands.
"Those who want to take an exotic pet, in most cases, have no idea about the proper maintenance of turtles. Therefore, we select potential owners quite strictly, do not give the animals into the unknown, but first check whether our wards will be comfortable in a new place," Milana continues.
Thanks to the Turtle Assistance Team from the Moscow Zoo, where the turtles that were abandoned by their owners lived, 34 Central Asian turtles, 17 red-eared turtles, 4 swamp turtles and two Chinese trionychs found their new home. In total, during the work with the zoo, about two hundred freshwater animals were attached.
"If you meet a marsh turtle south of Moscow and west of Izhevsk and Ufa in nature, you do not need to pick it up and "save" it, it will live perfectly and overwinter itself. And it doesn't matter if it's an adult turtle or a cub. But if the turtle was found in the city or on the road, take it out of the city away from the roads and release it next to a large freshwater reservoir," Milana Petruk shares her experience.
Marsh turtles found in the cold regions of Russia are advised by the Turtle Rescue Team to be sent to more southern and warmer regions for release. This can be done with friends who are traveling south, or contact the Turtle Rescue Team and transfer the freshwater for collective shipment.
Photo from the personal archive of Milana Petruk