1 week Ago By People
A wild eastern box turtle got her first taste of fresh air and sunshine in decades after she was moved from a New York home to a New Jersey animal rehabilitation center earlier this year. According to NPR and the Washington Post , Rockalina the turtle is recovering well after 50 years living on a tiled kitchen floor — and she has the folks at Garden State Tortoise to thank. "Like we do in any rescue, we ask to see the photos .
.. And they sent us the photos, and my wife and I, our jaws hit the ground," Garden State Tortoise founder Chris Leone told NPR on Thursday, April 24.
According to Leone, Rockalina's story began in 1977, when a boy playing outside his New York home found her and brought her into his house, where his family kept her for nearly 50 years. The turtle, estimated by Leone to be about 10 or 15 years old when she was brought inside, lived on cat food and sometimes lettuce. Her feet clacked along the family's tile flooring, instead of the rough terrain outdoors, which would have helped keep her nails short.
In February this year, Leone and the rest of the crew at Garden State Tortoise received a call from the boy's relative asking for help. In photos, Rockalina looked different than most eastern box turtles, which are brightly colored with blacks, browns and yellows and have sharp beak-like mouths. The over 60-year-old girl instead had pale skin, overgrown claws that were curling back up into her skin, her eyes were in bad shape, she was missing a tail and was covered in cat hair.
"We felt we're going to lose her," Leone told NPR. "I mean, right away it was like, 'I don't know about this one.' She can't even see.
" But Leone was quick to action, he told the outlets, and Rockalina was whisked into a warm bath to soak. "Within 45 to 50 minutes of her being in warm water, her eyes opened. And you could tell that she was just like, 'Where am I? What's going on?' " Leone said.
From there, the sweet turtle was placed under a veterinarian's care, receiving antibiotics, a meal made of soft, mushed-up foods and a trim of her nails and beak, he told the outlets. Garden State Tortoise also began posting about Rockalina on social media — including one particularly emotional YouTube video this month that features her first moments in the sun in decades — and she quickly garnered fans who are invested in her recovery. According to the National Park Service , Eastern box turtles were once populous on the east coast from Maine to Florida, and were often found in people's backyard pools and ponds.
The population has decreased over the years, as their habitats have degraded and people like Rockalina's family members took them in as pets. The Smithsonian National Zoo reports that they can live to over 100 years old. As for Rockalina, she's been improving every single day.
Although Leone says she won't be able to live with other turtles because of her decades-long captivity, she's been burrowing into the ground as her injuries heal and exploring the natural world in an outdoor habitat. "It was like this turtle seems to know we're helping her, because every single step of the way that we did something, she immediately responded to it," Leone told NPR. Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Rockalina is also back to some of her old ways, and has even munched on an earthworm since going back outside. “She’s absolutely adorable,” Leone told the Post . "And with the way that the beak is shaped, it looks like she’s constantly smiling, you know?" Leone and the rest of the Garden State Tortoise also shared some advice with anyone who encounters an eastern box turtle in the wild.
"They’re already home," he told the Post. "It's just one of those moments that unfortunately in today's world are rare, where you're like, 'We really actually have a happy ending here,' " he told NPR. Read the original article on People.
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