Florida’s cooters are not to be confused with “sliders”—in fact, the red-eared slider from the pet trade is an invasive species here. Sadly, thousands of Florida’s wild river turtles have been subjected to unlimited commercial harvest and shipped to Asian food markets. We were repeating the same historical mistakes we made with green sea turtles. But in 2009, Florida wisely banned commercial harvesting of all freshwater wild turtles.
My original river turtle painting “Florida Cooters In The Sun” is 48 x 30 inches, the river turtle art captures a group of turtles basking in a pond.