“This is not a happy time for turtles,” Dolphin Award winner Susan Tellem said when describing her volunteer work as a turtle and tortoise rescuer. Along with her husband of 23 years, Marshall Thompson, the couple has placed more than 4,000 of the creatures into loving environments through their nonprofit The American Tortoise Rescue.
For nearly three decades, the couple has run their animal sanctuary, now from their Malibu home. “I really like turtles. So I went and purchased two Russian tortoises for Marshall’s birthday. That was before I knew buying was a bad idea,” Tellem explained. After researching, she said, “We realized that there was no national turtle and tortoise rescue and not a lot of information. But people had a lot of questions.” After letting pet stores know they would take in an animal if needed, they were inundated once the word got out. Thompson and Tellem moved to Malibu specifically to run the sanctuary.
The turtles and tortoises are “left wild” at the property, according to Tellem, who estimates there are roughly 100 at the home sanctuary. Now, the rescue only takes in special needs turtles and tortoises or ones through confiscation—as last year, when more than 70 hatchling baby red-eared slider turtles were confiscated from Chinatown in Los Angeles. “They were going to euthanize them, so we took them all in,” Tellem said. “In fact, we still have about 50, but they’re too small. They’re the ones that are illegal to sell, but people sell them all the time. When they get bigger, we will place them with people who have ponds. If the animals are healthy they are re-homed.
“It’s a passion. Turtles have been abused, sold into the pet trade, smuggled and face habitat destruction,” Tellem said. Citing the California Desert Tortoise and the California Pond Turtle, she claimed they are “in dire straights because we import invasive non-native, red-eared sliders and are sent to live food markets or pet stores. There are hardly any left in California.”