14 DAY TRIAL // For quite some time now, several conservationists have been doing their best in breeding western pond turtles in captivity, hoping that this will allow them to help the species escape extinction.
Apparently, western pond turtles used to be a common sight in the past, yet various human activities such as erecting river dams, building power plants and draining wetlands have caused them to disappear from Canada.
Moreover, the ones now residing in the United States and Mexico are considered to be threatened with extinction.
These turtles, which have only recently hatched at Oregon Zoo, Portland, are no bigger than a coin and only weigh a few ounces, sources report.
However, the people now looking after them hope that, once they start gaining some weight and grow a tad older, they could be released into the wild.
Over the past 20 years, 1.500 such turtles have been released into various natural habitats, and conservationists hope that soon enough this species will no longer be a threatened one.