Will a turtle die if not fed for a long time? Returning home after two months of quarantine, a 16-year-old turtle starved to death

In 2022, a woman in Changchun, Jilin Province, returned home after being quarantined in a hotel for 2 months, only to find that the turtle she had raised for 16 years had died.

When the woman returned home, she originally expected the fish in the tank might be dead and the green plants might have withered. However, unexpectedly, the water hadn’t dried up and the plants were intact; it was just the turtle on the balcony that had died after 2 months without eating or drinking. After all, having raised it for 16 years, this sudden change made the woman extremely sad. When the turtle was discovered, its eyes were gone, and its limbs were shriveled. Some netizens speculated that the turtle’s death might be due to hunger, dehydration, or perhaps harm caused by small animals.

Wuhan university student’s dormitory snapping turtle dried up and died

In 2020, a university student studying in Wuhan also had a turtle raised in the dormitory starve to death on the balcony.

Shortly after the start of his sophomore year (second year of university), Student Lin, out of curiosity, spent over 100 yuan (approx. $14 USD) on an online platform to buy a snapping turtle (a large, ferocious freshwater turtle species native to the Americas) to raise on the dormitory balcony. On January 21, 2020, Student Lin returned to his hometown in Taiyuan, Shanxi, for the Chinese New Year. He placed the snapping turtle in a pet box filled with water and also left ham sausages and other food. He originally planned to return to school around February 20, so under normal circumstances, the snapping turtle should have been able to survive.

However, due to the impact of the epidemic, the return date was postponed. It wasn’t until around 8 PM on August 31 that Student Lin returned to the school dormitory, finding that the water in the pet box on the balcony had completely dried up, the snapping turtle was dead, and it had dried to a mere skeleton. If it had just caught some rain (dialect, referring to encountering rainfall or getting wet from rain) on the balcony, it is estimated that the above 2 turtles should have been able to survive.

A snapping turtle in Guangdong miraculously survives after being forgotten for 1 year

Also, a year ago, Ah Wei from Guangdong took over an injured snapping turtle from elsewhere and put it at the “bottom of a box for a medicated bath (medicated bath treatment, immersing the pet in water containing medicinal ingredients) for recuperation.” However, because he raised too many turtles, he directly forgot this “unlucky” snapping turtle to “outer space.” Ah Wei only remembered this recently. He fished out a “turtle-shaped skeleton” from the bottom of the box. This snapping turtle had been starving in a dark corner for a whole year, yet did not starve to death, but literally thinned itself into a “spokesperson for skin and bones.”