We all know the red-eared slider. For years the quarter-sized hatchlings with the red eye stripe were popular items in pet stores and in the pet section of most department stores. Most were sold as a package deal, a twenty-nine cent baby turtle and a clear plastic turtle bowl with a remarkably kitsch-y plastic palm-decorated center island, both for just $1.50

"Popular" is a bit of an understatement. During the 1960s, U.S. hatcheries produced as many as 15 million red-eared slider hatchlings, all destined for the pet market. Although the vast majority of red-ears never survived the first year (we knew nothing about their food needs, the importance of calcium and phosphorus being unknown at the time), a few did. You can guess what happened to those young turtles that survived long to become wearisome to their youthful owners: plop into the nearest freshwater lake/pond. By and large, this freedom also offered unlimited swimming room, sunlight, few predators, ready access to vegetation, and with luck, interested red-ears of the opposite sex.

Then the US Centers for Disease Control determined that salmonella infections in children might be the result of turtle ownership, and the Food and Drug Administration got involved, ignorning the fact that this bacteria is found everywhere in our world -- outside, in dirt, on plant leaves, on garden tools, on car door handles and inside, on the floor, on counters, on eggs, on fruits and vegetables.

When the FDA created regulations forbidding the interstate sale of baby turtles in 1975, they selected a shell length of four inches as the arbitrary cut-off point. This decision was based, I kid you not, on the idea that a four-inch turtle was too large to fit into a baby's mouth. Never doubt that some governmental decisions are arbitrary.

With Louisiana, the main production state, looking at nowhere to sell their baby turtles but overseas, turtle production dropped to about two million hatchlings a year. Those babies were largely destined for Asia and Europe.

The 70- odd turtle hatcheries in Louisiana went to work and developed methods to hatch salmonella-free hatchling turtles. They did this by washing the newly laid eggs in a bleach solution and then incubating the eggs in temperature- and humidity-controlled incubation chambers. The hatchlings were then placed into clean, salmonella-free bins. These salmonella-free babies were still largely destined for export to Europe, Asia and China, where they were pets, good luck symbols, and raised up and used for human food.

A few young red-ears in Europe, Asia, and China also found their way to freedom in streams, ponds and lakes, and found the living good. They grew up, mated, and generation followed generation. It didn't take long until concerns were raised about competition with native species (sound familiar?), and in 1998 Europe banned the import of non-native turtle species. In Asia, entrepreneurial turtle farmers began raising their own supply of red-ears.

Today, red-ears are found in canals, ponds, and other waterways in Europe and Asia. Jim Harding, a herpetology professor at the University of Michigan, saw them in a pool at the Eiffel Tower (no, they were not wearing tiny berets) and in the Dominican Republic. A professor of sociology at the University of Florida proudly showed me his photographs of a "temple turtle" in China -- it was a red-ear. Red-ears are also found in Japan, Germany, Israel, South Africa, and the Mariana Islands. Their range in the US expanded from the southern environs of the Mississippi River and the Rio Grande River, part of Mississippi, Alabama and far western Florida to Virginia, Georgia, all of Florida, Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington state, and Michigan.

So the next time you see a red-eared slider, admire its ability to adapt. And go ahead -- it still makes a nice pet.

Photos: R.D. Bartlett