Gallery Spotlight
FLORIDA COOTERS IN THE SUN
By Kim B. Parrish
© 2020 – 48 x 30” Oil on Canvas
FLORIDA COOTER
Pseudemys concinna floridana
Protected by Florida Fish and Wildlife (FWC)
You have to love the cooter turtles, they really know how to live—spending a large portion of the day just soaking up the warm Florida sun. They come in several flavors, including P. floridana, P. suwanniensis, P. nelsoni, etc.; but all of them are recognized by science as “cooters,” a name which Merriam-Webster suggests may be connected to the African word “kuta,” which simply means… turtle.
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.