I?ll thank Kelly also. Hal Michael also called my attention to the fact that small individuals of these introduced turtles are rarely (never?) seen in the lakes. I?ve certainly never seen one, whereas you commonly see young Painted Turtles in eastern Washington, where they are native. So maybe they?re not breeding at all. Hal wondered if the soil dried up too much in our relatively dry summers for the eggs to hatch successfully, even when they do attempt to breed (which they surely must, being as motivated as any other animal).

One of the sad things about the world to me is that supposed animal lovers do so much damage to wild populations by insisting on having wild pets?especially reptiles and amphibians and fish, but parrots and other birds come to mind (this is tweeters, after all). There is a huge market in illegally collected and smuggled animals for the pet trade.

Dennis Paulson
Seattle

On Jan 18, 2015, at 10:03 AM, Jeff Gibson <gibsondesign at msn.com> wrote:

> Thanks Dennis and Kelly for more turtle information.
>
> Yes, Dennis, I have seen plenty of Red-eared Sliders on the Lake, so was careful in my id: prominent yellow stripes on head, and bright red plastron markings, so it sure seemed to be a Painted. Now, as to whether it was a Buddhist or not, I'm not certain - it did appear to be meditating though.
>
> I would love to find them Snappers, and Softshells - not with my toes though - I hear they bite. My ol' friend Tom from Michigan told me they used to find Snapping turtles back there by feeling with their feet - you stand on the turtle then reach down and grab 'em by the tail and haul them up. Since he wasn't known as 'Three-fingered Tom', maybe he really knew how to do that.
>
> I remember as a little kid in Seattle, that Lake Washington was a body of water one should not venture into for health reasons. Now days it's quite the biological melting pot. Are there actually more introduced species ( from algae,on up through fish, herps, and all the way to Nutria) than natives in Lake Washington? Maybe.
>
> Jeff Gibson
> turtle amateur