Since my recent article on a group of so-called “outdoor enthusiasts” who wanted me to tell them what to do with turtle carcasses they had found, I have received some input and observations from the readership. But first, to recapitulate, last week I tendered a lecture program on a nature study subject. Word of my presence as a “ranger” or otherwise “nature wise” person had preceded me. So they came toward me in a sort of mad rush with the big news that they had found three dead turtles that day and how would I like them packaged as they were going to give them to me. Struggling hard to hold myself back, I simply said that I had nothing to do with parks any longer (being retired) so I had no need for them. Then they asked if they should call the local zoo and inform them and get a zookeeper to come out and accept the deceased reptiles. I then said that I worked at the zoo for several years and they didn’t make house calls and would not respond. So they became bewildered as to what to do with them and I simply told them to leave them in the lake as nature would take its course and they would decay along with everything else that dies. This answer just drew strange looks and disdainful answers to the effect that “doesn’t anyone care?”

    That more or less sums up the experience and I remain at a totally loss to understand just what it was they expected someone to do with the half rotten turtles. It was my assumption that they expected a report to be filed of some kind as if they had found a dead human corpse or maybe have the carcasses examined for whatever disease might have killed them. But these are pure speculations as I really don’t know what they expected to be done.

    Some have suggested that they may have wanted someone to perform a funeral much as families do when the pet goldfish passes away. Others have observed that it was a good thing they didn’t expect me to remove all the dead trees in the park. But on these lines of thought I can report that upon reflection I do recall different times when I performed speaking engagements before elementary school-aged groups eight year olds would come up to me and say, “I found a dead squirrel! Should I bring it to you?” So this may indicate that grown adults (the group ranged from late 40s to early 70s) have no better concept of this than do eight year olds…or at least this group of “avid outdoors-people” did not. I do remember that in my struggle to remain calm and to resist being sarcastic I did come up with something that confused them even more. I said that what they wanted to do was to take the food out of the mouths of the forest scavengers like vultures and it was cruel of them to want to cause starvation and make even more animals die. They had absolutely no response for that idea other than blank stares and exasperation…but I did enjoy putting them on the spot for a moment.