Jerks Painted This Tortoise’s Shell Red – Luckily Kind Rescuers Stepped in to Save the Day

Humans have a skewed perception of nature and its inhabitants. Considering we have industrialized almost all of the land on Earth and have taken animals from their natural habitats for our own entertainment, scientific tests, and consumption, it’s not much of a surprise that people feel like they can pretty much do whatever they want to animals with no repercussion.

We’ve seen this depressing fact highlighted in several ways over the past few years. We’ve seen people take marine animals out of the ocean just for the sake of photos, we’ve seen barbaric events being held where animal cruelty is celebrated, and when you think about it, our negligent attitude towards our rampant Pollution and plastic use shows that we really don’t think about the animals that can be harmed from our trash.

Wildlife hospitals see animal abuse cases all the time. Just recently, the Von Arx Wildlife Hospital took in a tortoise who was cruelly painted. The tortoise’s shell was completely covered in red paint, with some also found on her head and legs.

Using a non-toxic and soy-based cleaner, the biologist was able to get most of the paint off. Unfortunately, because the tortoise was agitated, it took several days to get it all off and the animal had to be sedated. Poor thing!

Thankfully, after just a few days, the tortoise seemed ready to return to the wild. The biologist released her in an area shown to have a healthy gopher tortoise population.

We’re glad that nothing worse was done to this poor tortoise, but given this animals’ timid nature, we can only imagine how traumatizing it must have been to be captured, painted, and then have to go through the long process of having said paint removed. No animal should have to deal with these situations simply because they don’t have a voice to defend themselves and cannot run away. The sooner humans realize this, the better off we all will be.

All Images Source: Conservancy of Southwest Florida/Facebook