[obol] off-topic turtle news

[pamela johnston]

This is not related to Darryl's turtle question.

Today's Wall Street Journal has a front page story on slider turtles, the 
ones kids of my generation kept in clear plastic trays with a little green 
plastic palm tree in the center. They are native to the lower Mississippi. 
They were banned for sale in the U.S. because they harbor salmonella in 
their gut, which children caught by putting the turtles into their mouths. 
(Somehow I never thought to do that.) They are still raised in Louisiana for 
foreign trade. Since Chinese competition dropped turtle and turtle egg 
prices, turtle producers are hoping to reintroduce them to the U.S. pet 
trade.

Nowhere did the author mention the risks to native turtles posed by the 
release of sliders in the wild outside their home region.

Pamela Johnston