Turtle Soup, anyone?

Alligator eats boy's pet turtle at Florida aquarium

FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A horrified 8-year-old boy watched as his pet turtle disappeared into an alligator's jaws at an aquarium in the Florida Panhandle.

Colton Guthrie had donated his pet red-eared slider, Tomalina, to the Gulfarium in Fort Walton Beach when the turtle outgrew her home aquarium. Colton's mother told the Northwest Florida Daily News Tuesday that the family saw workers place Tomalina in an exhibit Thursday with other red-eared sliders and an alligator.

Although the alligator had long ignored the other turtles, Brenda Guthrie said the gator ate Tomalina as Colton shouted, "Oh no, alligator, let it go!"

The Gulfarium has apologized to the Guthries' and gave them a special meet-and-greet with the dolphins.


Wow … where do I start?

First of all, kid, welcome to life. With life, comes death. With death comes mutilation. You got it all at once! Look on the bright side Colton, not everyone gets to experience an as up-close and personal “When Animals Attack” moment. Consider yourself lucky, not everyone gets front-row seats to such a show.

Alright, well, since he donated the turtle to the aquarium, it wasn’t really his pet anymore, was it? It belonged to the aquarium. If they wanted to use her as alligator food, then by God, they had every right to do so.

I find it somewhat surprising that Tomalina wasn’t put in quarantine or anything before introducing her to the new habitat. I mean, don’t they want to give her the once-over to prevent her from carrying any 8-year-old-boy cooties into the aquarium that might reek havoc over the other red-eared sliders? I’m just saying, sounds to me like the welfare of the animals isn’t exactly the utmost concern of these people.

Then again, considering they left Colton and his mom just watch as the alligator went to town on the turtle, obviously not much is of concern to these people. Poke that alligator with a stick and flip it over on its back so it will go to sleep while you rescue the turtle! Or, at the very least, at least pretend like you’re going to rescue the turtle.

It does make you wonder, however, if the turtle shell goes down easy or if this alligator may pay for jumping the gun on Turtle Soup later on down the line.

“Oh no, alligator, let it go!” Right, cause that’s going to work. Like the alligator put the turtle in its mouth, but when it heard Colton scream it dropped the turtle from its mouth and said, “Oh, my bad. Welcome to the aquarium, little buddy. If anyone picks on you, let me know, I’ll take care of them for you, okay?”

I guess the thing that gets me is that to make up for the fact they witnessed a turtle they gave to the aquarium double as a lunch entrée, the family gets a special meet-and-greet with the dolphins. Whereas I think that would be cool, I want to swim with the dolphins, but I really don’t think the family was entitled to anything. The mom should have made poor Colton look away, and for the love of all things holy, the aquarium shouldn’t have placed the new animal in the exhibit while people were there, watching. (Nevermind the fact, why are there alligators and turtles in the same exhibit?)

You know what would make this kid’s meet-and-greet with the dolphins so much better? If one of the trainers gets attacked by a killer whale.