It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s…a turtle on wheels!
While visiting Halifax’s Museum of Natural History, you may get to see this very sight, if you time it right. This is because the museum is home to Root: a 20-year-old wood turtle who happens to be missing his right front foot.
Root first arrived at the Natural History Museum in September, but before that, he had taken up residence at the Oaklawn Farm Zoo in Aylesford, N.S., and the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park.
Heather McKinnon Ramshaw, the assistant coordinator at the museum, says she’s unsure how Root lost his foot, but says that turtles of his species—one of only four turtle species found in Nova Scotia—are threatened.
“Unlike other turtles, such as snapping turtles, wood turtles are a little bit different because they do spend some of their time on land. They’ll explore a little bit of forest and maybe some grassland,” says McKinnon Ramshaw. “But when they’re up on the land, that’s when they can run into things that could be dangerous to them, such as predators or cars.”
We’ll never know if Root lost his foot to an unsuspecting driver or maybe a hungry racoon, but we do know that, thanks to the ingenuity of museum staff, Root is now moving better than ever.
It all started when Root’s caretakers noticed that the underside of his shell, the plastron, was scratching along the floor when the turtle would take his indoor exercise walks.
“Wood turtles might travel up to 100 metres in a day. We take him out for a walk every day, just so he gets exercise,” says McKinnon Ramshaw. In warmer weather, Root will typically walk along the soft grass outside, she says, but in the winter, the walks have to be moved inside, where the floor is rougher.
“We noticed, because he kind of drops a bit, that his shell will touch the floor,” says McKinnon Ramshaw. “We didn’t want to damage it further, so we said, well, we could get something to lift him up.”
It was Christmas time when staff noticed the issue, and the museum had just held a Lego-building exhibit.
Their first idea was to attach a Lego wheel to Root’s shell near his missing foot, which McKinnon Ramshaw says worked well enough, but was impractical because it could easily get caught on things and taping it to the bottom of the shell with medical tape wasn’t a viable long-term solution.
Instead, they got their hands on a small dog harness, which they tailored to fit Root. Then, they sewed a sheet of lego to the bottom to act as a sort of floorpan, and added a wheel on each side.
With his new set of wheels, Root is now free to explore the museum at breakneck speeds (for a turtle, that is).
“Once we put [the harness] on, he was able to actually go faster because he had the support on the bottom. So inside, he’s able to walk a lot better and explore more of the museum,” says McKinnon Ramshaw. “Wood turtles are very intelligent, and you can see him really looking around and exploring. So I think that means he really is enjoying this.”
But now that the weather is getting warmer, McKinnon Ramshaw says, the wheels will be taken off for Root’s outdoor walks, where he explores a patch of grass in the backyard of the museum.
Still, on rainy days and during the winter months, lucky visitors should keep an eye out for the sign on Roots terrarium that reads “Root is out for a walk,” as they’ll likely be able to catch a glimpse of the curious little critter whizzing by.
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