This small Eastern Painted Turtle is no larger than a quarter, and was admitted to New England Wildlife Center’s Hospital over the weekend. He hatched from a clutch of eggs in Pembroke, and was found swimming in a small pool in someones yard. While swimming, half of his body was acting much more buoyant than the other half, making him swim at an angle with half of his body outside the water. He was brought into our Hospital, where initial examinations confirmed him to be suffering from a respiratory infection. Baby animals do not have the same strong immune system adult animals have, and are quite susceptible to the many sicknesses and disease present in New England. Considering the Eastern Painted Turtle’s young age, we are currently treating him as fragile. This means we will not only be providing him with medication to treat the respiratory infection but we will also be providing nutritional support in order to bolster his immune system. We expect his treatment to continue for 2 weeks before we can think about release. We also intend to wait for the weather to be consistently warm before releasing the Painted turtle.