Musk Turtles' Disappearance Causes Big Stink

By JAMES GRAHAM

Three days after two Ecology turtles were announced missing, fueling campus-wide speculation that they had made a daring escape or that the Marine Biology class had played a prank, their mysterious disappearance took a tragic turn. One turtle was discovered dead in the Ecology classroom and the other, which remains missing, is suspected dead. The turtles were reported missing on the Saturday of the end of the first week of ASP, and the first turtle was discovered on the following Tuesday.

Rick Pacelli, the Ecology Master Teacher, discovered the first missing turtle in a corner of the classroom. While only one turtle was actually found, the class believes the other may have crawled under the refrigerator in the classroom or to a small space inaccessible to humans. The ‘ninja turtles,’ nicknamed by the class, used a tall plant called a ‘picker weed,’ placed in the tank earlier in the week, to climb out of their aquarium.

Reed Loy, an intern for the Ecology class, said that the incident was “an honest mistake, and we all feel horribly that this happened.” Mr. Loy hoped that students would view this mishap as a cautionary tale regarding the possible ramifications of humans taking animals out of their natural habitat.

The two musk turtles, or ‘stinkpot’ turtles as called by the Ecology class, were originally caught near the dam by the post office.

“We were looking for macro-invertebrates with big nets, and when we checked our nets, twice did we have the turtles in them,” said Mr. Pacelli.

The turtles were then brought into the Ecology classroom and placed in an aquarium. Four days later, the class discovered the concentration of carbon dioxide in the tank’s water was abnormally high. To correct the imbalance the class placed a picker weed, the plant used in the turtle escape, inside the tank to absorb the carbon dioxide and, in return, give off oxygen.

Following the disappearance, a miscommunication between the Marine Biology class and the Ecology class led some students to believe that someone in the Marine Biology class had taken the turtles as a practical joke. Days before the turtles went missing, the Marine Biology class had borrowed a set of plastic turtles from the Ecology class. Marine Biology intern Keegan Runnals had put the turtles in his classroom and, When he was questioned about the turtles, he replied they were ‘safely’ in the Marine Biology room.

Upon further questioning, the misunderstanding between the real and plastic turtles was revealed. In this regard, Marine Biology Master Teacher Marla Jones said the communication error was “an honest mistake.”

The turtles were “to be used as an example…to classify organisms,” said Mr. Runnals.