The turtle people > York Harbor couple care for injured turtles

While the other kids were cooing over cuddly puppies, fluffy bunnies and peeping chicks, Nadine Wheeler was happily scurrying after the cold-blooded inhabitants of a little pond near her house.

Snakes, lizards, frogs and turtles — especially turtles — those were the objects of her fascination as a child growing up in New Hampshire. Every day in summer, she’d manage to return home with at least a few of the hopping, crawling, tongue-flicking specimens. And every day, her grandfather, a lover of all wild things, would let her play with the creatures for a while before reminding her that they were not hers to keep.

“He said they were wild, and that they belonged in the wild,” said Wheeler, who has since turned that childhood fondness for turtles into the full-time job of healing them and returning them to the lakes, ponds and rivers of Maine.

Wheeler and her photographer husband, Dean, are “the turtle people” of York Harbor. Through their association with the Center for Wildlife, a small, non-profit wildlife rehabilitation organization in nearby Cape Neddick, they are responsible for the round-the-clock care of as many as 25 patched-up turtles that have been run over by cars near Maine’s wetlands.

And in the fall, when the eggs hatch, they expect to become the proud surrogate parents of another 16 or so painted turtles and 23 baby snappers that are now incubating comfortably around the house.

“Most people think we’re crazy,” Wheeler said. “I suppose if turtles were warm and fuzzy, it would be a different story. But people grow up thinking that turtles are just disposable pets. When you get tired of them, you just get rid of them. We’re trying to change that attitude.”

Wheeler’s work with turtles grew out of her involvement with the center, where eight volunteers and a state-licensed animal rehabilitationist also care for everything from motherless baby squirrels and rabbits to starving blue herons and wounded owls.

Two summers ago, the center was asked to take in a couple of turtles whose shells had been crushed by cars. A local veterinarian first wired and patched the turtles’ damaged shells, using an expoxy-like bandage similar to the Bondoh used to repair rusted automobile bodies. After determining that the center could not properly house the turtles in its single trailer during the long winter rehabilitation, the Wheelers agreed to take them home.

The painted turtle, a common variety in Maine, was so badly injured that it eventually died. The rare wood turtle survived its ordeal, however, and may soon become part of a captive-breeding program headed by Mark McCollough, of the Maine Inland Fisheries and Game Endangered Species Project.

Wheeler began spreading the message of turtle respect among schoolchildren — Turtle 101, she jokingly called it — hoping they could learn to appreciate turtles as ancient, noble creatures rather than as inexpensive pet-store novelties.

“Turtles were on the Earth 250 million years ago,” she said with genuine admiration. “They were here before the dinosaurs and are still with us today. They have survived the ice ages. Turtles are really like living fossils, with intelligence and personalities all their own.”

Through McCollough, known widely for his ambitious, though unsuccessful, attempt to restore caribou herds to Maine, Wheeler also discovered that the eastern box turtle, which can live 100 years or more, is an endangered species in Maine. The wood, Blandings and spotted turtles are all listed as threatened species.

Wheeler’s interest occasionally takes her afield. Last summer, for example, she worked with wildlife researchers to help track the movements of egg-bearing Blandings and spotted turtles and their offspring through southern Maine nesting grounds.

“As word got out that there was someone around who knew something about turtles, we started getting calls,” Wheeler said.

People who normally would have released their pet turtles into the wild, where they would almost certainly die, asked Wheeler to care for them instead. A professor from the University of Maine even drove from Bangor to York one rainy night to deliver a car-crushed turtle into Wheeler’s capable hands.

“We have had as many as 25 turtles in the house,” Wheeler said. “Now we have about 20.”

Cages are everywhere in the Wheeler home — on top of dressers, tables and on the floor. When the house lights go on automatically at 5 a.m., Dean makes the coffee while turtles named Bob, Ray, Luigi, Travis, Irma, Maggie, To and ToJam begin to roam freely — if slowly — about the place.

“Maggie and Woodsy come nosing into the kitchen, looking for food,” Wheeler said. “All day you hear the bumping and thumping of things, like the time they knocked over the fishing rods. You can tell when they are not feeling well. I think it’s wonderful living with them because they have such wonderful personalities.”

But for any parent who might be thinking about buying a turtle for a child, Wheeler has a suggestion: “Unless the child wants to make a lifetime commitment to it, and no child is capable of that, I’d say get him a cuddly stuffed turtle instead.”