Turtle and Frog in Captivity

      On Wednesday, June 5th, we found a baby snapping turtle. We decided to keep the snapping turtle in the classroom, so we could show it to the eighth graders, who we wanted to get interested and educated in herpetology. Th first night, the snapping turtle, who was named Kraken, was kept in bucket. The next day, the turtle was looking healthy, and we tried to feed it a piece of a hot dog. The snapping turtle, who should have eaten anything we fed it, because that is what they do, did not bite. That same day, Lucas caught a large bullfrog, who was designated the name Toro. We tried to put Toro and Kracken in separate fish aquariums, which worked for Kraken. The bullfrog, however, wasted all of his energy on getting out of the fish tank, so we had to put him in a less transparent tank. We put him in a giant trash bucket with some water for him to sit in and a rock so he could get out of the water once in a while. We threw about ten crickets into the frog's tank and a small fish. We also put several fish and a few crickets into the Kracken's tank. The next day, all of the crickets and fish were eaten by the bull frog and turtle. Every day that we held the animals, we had to change the water, which smelled of dead crickets, fish and turtle and frog feces. When we left the the animals at school for the weekend, we had to leave a lot of crickets and fish in their tanks, enough to last them three days. When we came back on Monday the frog most of the crickets and fish were gone and the bullfrog looked good. The turtle, however, looked a little unhealthy. Sadly, we had to release the Kracken into the wild. We put him on the side of a pond, and he quickly swam away, never to be seen again. We kept Toro until that Wednesday to so we could show him to the eighth graders. We found ten green frogs the day before the presentation which we could also show the eighth graders. Following the presentation, we released all of the animals into the natural habitats, where they could live and reproduce. After the presentation to the eighth graders, there has been no business in the S203 animal hotel.

This is Toro, the bullfrog we found.