The problem with this is most people will say "It's just a turtle."

racing turtles, wild ones especially, and having to RENT them is gross. having children also handle turtles without having an adult help them is cruel and sad.

After this I gave my turtle some food, and told her I loved her. By the way, my dad had the 'brilliant idea' of releasing my juvi female RES into the wild once she 'got too big'. I told him very firmly that, no, I am not giving her up, its illegal to release them into the wild, and she was rasied in captivity from a hatchling. And most shelters are over their ears in RES, most of which never get adopted.

Considering how turtle's shells are apart of their spine and they can feel from it, the pain of being dropped must be equivalent to falling down the stairs.. Any animal shouldn't have to go through this but even if it's for money to care for your family, that doesn't make it okay to practically torture an animal, even one so overlooked by society I feel so bad for the turtles

In my town we replaced turtle racing with dressing children in turtle costumes and letting the kids race.

I can't believe this is even legal, especially with the mortality rate, the stress, and torture that these poor turtles go through. My heart dropped when I saw the turtles being dropped. This has to stop. This is flat out animal abuse.

This hurts my heart so much. I remember going to these exact turtle races when I was really young and my dad bought me a turtle to race. I remember having so much fun and took my turtle home and kept him for many years. He did outgrow his space and I wasn’t able to give him prober care so we were able to find a sanctuary to take him instead. When I raced him they didn’t do the bucket thing, that is really hard to watch. We would just let them go and have fun watching them problem solve to get to the finish line where someone else had treats for them! It’s heart breaking to see what this has become.

I could not continue watching this after the second race, it breaks my heart. But I am so grateful to you both for calling attention to this cruelty. Thank you so much for all that you are doing to help others fall in love with, and learn to care about, the animals among us.

From a psychological standpoint, I start to believe that the kids are growing less and less empathic towards animals due to these events. They're kids and they're more concerned about being embarrassed by having a slow turtle or more concerned about getting frustrated that the turtles are fighting back. They would never treat a dog this way, leading to a reinforcement of not caring about all animals, just a select few.

This “racing” is 100% abuse and for human entertainment only. It’s disgusting and cruel. Great educational video Emily!

I absolutely love Emily's hair! But, this sounds horrifying! Imagine being grabbed from your home, tortured, and terrified, and then, if you survive, you probably won't even be returned to your own home

I feel like instead of banging the buckets, they could lead them to their destination with food :D

This is literally disgusting. Those poor turtles are sooo stressed and scared because people are banging those buckets just to make them move. I can't believe a grownup would watch a kid drop a turtle multiple times and not do anything. I can't even believe that this is legal, like why would Minnesota let people do this and sell turtles at garage sales. People act like turtles are just objects not an actual living breathing thing. Thank you soooo much Emily and Ed for informing people on how this is bad and how to make these more Humane and not like literal animal abuse!

Dear Council Member, I have been made aware of the seemingly infamous turtle racing season at the city of Perham. To my knowledge, the conditions of this race are extremely harmful to the turtles used. I have a few thoughts on how you as a powerful member of Perham might move forward to prevent as much death of these turtles as possible. Firstly, we can change the type of turtles used from Painted wild caught turtles to Red-eared sliders that come from captivity. Using turtles in captivity ensures that there is no further human disruption to the balance of the ecosystem for months at a time. At the end of the season, instead of releasing all of the turtles into the same lake which results in many turtle deaths, turtles donated from local herpetological societies or reptile rescues can be returned or given away to racing members. This reduces the overpopulation of Red-eared sliders and brings no disruption to the ecosystem. To help boost the economy, you can also set up a fundraiser for people to donate to these herpetologist societies or reptile rescues. Secondly, these turtles are mishandled by both children and adults. It’s extremely stressful for turtles to be picked up the wrong way, dropped or left in buckets for hours, and to be scared into running towards the outer ring by the sound of buckets banging on the concrete. One way in which we can help the mishandling of these turtles is to ask the herpetological society or reptile rescues to give a brief presentation on how to handle turtles for an overall safer environment and more educated people. Another way in which we can help is to lure the turtles with food rather than scare them into walking away. This gives children the option of connecting with the animal in a fun way and they might even want to adopt a turtle at the end of it. Again, this would help with the overpopulation of captive Red-eared sliders. I hope that you take my thoughts into consideration and we can move forward with creating a sustainable future with turtle racing involved. Thank you,

This is sick 😔 it’s sad nobody realises the true pain of turtles. They are still living creatures! 🐢 PROTECT THE TURTLES 🐢

My son (7 years old) was sad to hear about the turtle racing. He says that it should stop. Thanks for raising awareness about this, we love your cannel!

My god, a lot of evil and cruel things are done in honor of “traditions”. Did y’all know that the town of Ypres, Belgium has a tradition of throwing cats from the top of a tower?!? Thankfully, using live cats was finally outlawed, and fabric cats took their place. The festival that’s held there now is supposed to be great for cat-lovers but man I can’t really imagine enjoying the festival much when it has that kind of history behind it…

Proud of her for being willing to ruffle those feathers.

When i was really young, i thought that this was cool and i wanted to join… then i grew up and i realize that this is extremely harmful to these turtles and watching the events now makes me sick and wanting to cry

I’m so glad you are spreading awareness of this and I really hope that people realize this, this is literal abuse and it is horrible, I didn’t even know people did this and this just disgusts me that people do this, when those kids dropped those turtles I was shocked, I really hope this spreads

So they take a WILD animal and scare the living crap out of them for fun? I thought it was illegal to take and have possession of wild animals? This is disgusting!

I like the fact that she isn’t just saying “GET RID OF THE THING YOU LOVE” she’s saying “Improve the thing you love, and here’s why you should”

Thank you for making this video! The footage was kind of hard to sit through after you briefed us about the stress it can cause on the turtles used. It just seems so cruel. I really hope you are able to get enough exposure to spark some change!

This is absolutely GUT WRENCHING!!!! BUT im so glad you made this video because i had NO IDEA and if more people knew then maybe more people would reach out and protest.. Or ask for changes or even just speak out about how it isnt okay with how its being done now. This is so sad and literally just a FEW changes could make things so much better. Teaching proper handling and education is a HUGE one. But also if they even just returned the turtles back to where they got them and kept the ones from different lakes separate it would be so so much better. A LOT MORE should be done as well.. But one inch at a time.. Too much change and people wouldnt be for it. I also think its so sad that fish and wild life commissions all over the country (USA) are making laws that aren't actually helping anything but making having a pet responsibly much harder and putting us through more hoops is horrid ESPECIALLY when this and other things like this that would help so much more!!!

It absolutely disgusts me that parents are allowing their children to mistreat animals this way. If this city did this with dogs and cats, there would be outrage. Why is it ok to treat turtles that way?

The banging buckets gave ME anxiety. I can’t imagine how those turtles felt…😣😰

As a proud keeper of a rescued Eastern Painted, this frustrates me so much. Thank you for your activism.

That was hard to watch, it's mind-blowing that a crowd that large, with adults supervising, didn't see the cruelty in what they were doing, or didn't care. Those children were really being let down by the adults around them.

HALF of them die each summer??? Even if the city doesn't realize that the relocated turtles probably can't survive, these numbers should still be alarming

My jaw DROPPED when the announcer said that people could just leave the turtles they brought with them after the race. I don't know why that stuck with me so much, but it was at that point that I was like "oh they really just view these living creatures as objects ok ok cool cool cool...."

Omg I haven’t had a notification for ur channel in forever i love ur blue/green hair 😭 ALSO THIS IS SO TRAGIC

I would love an update on this video if there is one.

This was horrific. It's honestly pretty hard to express my feelings on this with family-friendly language.

I can't even imagine how many turtles suffered from broken shells and tails. My heart aches for every single one of them.

This video literally had me in tears at the level of cruelty and the number of people enthusiastically participating without saying anything. I really hope this video raises enough awareness to help make a change or stop this alltogether.

I did see what I thought was a really good turtle race once down in Florida though it was run very differently, there were only three or four turtles and they were all privately owned and rather big. Their owners where there and talked to people about their turtle, the turtle were faced against Each other with food incentives to get them moving. People could make bets on who would win and just make donations. The event was to help raise money and awareness for the sea turtles that next on their beach. It actually really beautiful as the turtles were acting more as ambassadors for their more endangered cousins. The turtles were always safe, given temporary hides and water as well plenty of treats and if the turtles didn't want to be involved they were to big to be made otherwise, only one of the turtles was still small enough to be picked up by one person and they weren't racing that one just getting use to the environment and public.

the fact that the parents let the kids handle the turtles like toys. AND THE FACT THAT PARENTS EVEN DO THE RACE AND DON'T THINK ANYTHING OF IT. This is downright gross.

How disgusting. As an axolotl owner (and a decent human being), all I could imagine was how the people running this would feel if they were collected from their house, put into buckets for months, forced into a race and then finally poked with a knife to go faster in the race.

As a carer for my Grandturtle I am appalled at this event and never knew it existed. I love my 13yr grandturtle , he has so much personality and loves to be entertained by myself and his Poppa. We have been taking care of him for 3 years since his parents had to move out of the country for work. We as a family are committed to love and care for him for his entire life.

Just sent this email to all Perham City council members: Hello, I have just discovered your long-standing tradition of having children race turtles. While I understand this is meant to be a wholesome family event that the community has long enjoyed, as a Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor I am concerned about the psychological harm this does to the children. The lack of empathy and encouraged abuse from their family and community to treat animals they can have power over so cruelly can lead to concerning anti-social behaviors in those children. Would you please consider having the children make their own turtle costumes and have the children run races instead? Prizes can be given to most creative costuming, fastest, etc. Perhaps you could bring in a Reptile Educator who could bring all sorts of turtles and educate the kiddos. This would be a delightful and empowering event that could be enjoyed by the whole community. Then, not only will the children have fun, they will learn to care for animals rather than scare them into entertaining in a callous way. Thank you for considering my suggestions and I look forward to visiting your fair town and spending my money in your local shops once I find out children are no longer being encouraged to do harm to wildlife. Most Respectfully, Kimber Dillon

I hate how some humans think of turtles as toys. It's disgusting. People need to realize that turtles are creatures who CAN get hurt (especially when dropped onto hard concrete). Emily, thank you for going over this.

what a wonderful thing they are teaching all those children, " oh yes kiddos animal abuse is completely ok and great fun, please feel free to go throw some turtles around" I feel sick watching this....

I'm from Southern MI and have seen Turtle races less than the fingers on 1 hand. The races I saw were NOTHING like this however. It was a breeder or something like that who had them. They had about a 10 or 15 foot table sort of thing with separate lanes. The lanes were slightly angled and water flowed down the lanes. He had many many turtles that he raised and would only do a handful of races each day. People would pay to rent a Turtle and only the handler handled them. They started in a little box just like horse races and off they went. That's the only type of Turtle racing that I've ever seen and it's very rare and I stopped seeing it about 10 years ago. I have no idea of laws changed or if it's just not popular here anymore. I had no idea that Turtle racing could be like this this. It makes me so sad.

Watching this led me to contact the mayor and city council of a town in MN (Nisswa) where I have been an annual visitor, and where turtle races still happen. I will let you know how it goes.

i live in a buddhist community in illinois. My friend went to one of these. He thought it was going to be a harmless race that people could do with they’re pet turtle. When he went there he spoke up and was kicked out. Absolutely stupid tradition. Glad to see you speaking up.

“After the race you can put your turtles over here” EXCUSE ME! He’s talking as though these living creatures are objects that you can just throw away!

I am so glad you filmed this video to help the turtles because I had no idea this was happening

The 1st thing that went through my mind was the contamination between the "pet" turtles and wild caught turtles.

I love how they're like "oops just slammed a living animal on the ground, oH WEll" 😔

It's actually really disturbing how these people treat these animals as toys and see no wrong in doing so. Thank you for bringing light to the situation hopefully people from the event will see this video and change their ways.

This is heartbreaking. Humans can be so selfish and uneducated. I wish animals could speak or fight back against this cruelty. I hope these kind of events are banned. My heart sank as I viewed people’s actions against these poor creatures. They truly were running for their lives to no avail. Animals were here before our time and now have to cohabit with humans who are ruining their planet as well. They deserve our respect. RIP beautiful babies… Thank you Emily, hopefully you can change the perspectives of some people.

When I was a kid, my hometown held “turtle races” rules were that you could only use turtles taken from a lake that was at the edge of town (so no one used their pet or an invasive species from somewhere else) you could only get the turtles within a few days before the race (so no one would have a wild caught turtle for longer than a day or so) and the race was held in the parking lot of the nursing home that was on a hill that overlooked the lake the turtles were from and the DNR agents tagged and counted them and looked them over to make sure they were healthy. We then placed bets on which turtle would get back to the lake first when they were all released at once. It was more of a “community helps with census of local turtles” than “bored teenagers and grownups handing small children wild turtles and telling them to chase them across the parking lot while banging a bucket on the ground for our entertainment”. However ours only lasted two years before the DNR agents and other officials realized how many people caught turtles too far in advance or tried to leave with turtles because they wanted to make them into pets and stopped it.

Why would you even race turtles anyway? I feel like that would be the most boring thing to watch ever

I am astounded by how much worse this was than Emily's initial description was. They're not even just bribing the turtles with food, they're being scared with buckets.

I was waiting for one of those turtles to get smacked with the bucket... I knew it would probably be bad, but I didn't think it could be so terrible. Releasing pets back to the wild?! *Encouraging* people to catch wild and let children just throw them around?! I'll admit, when I was little my family liked to fish - and during one trip, we found a few baby turtles. There were some canoes nearby, so we held a few mini races on those, except we didn't toss them, bang on things, or push them. Made extra sure they didn't fall and we put them right back where we found them. Granted, looking back, we shouldn't have done that at all, to be fair... but we didn't even hang on it for too long, because we were there to fish. This is so sad. I really hope they changed the laws to protect those poor turtles :(

Using captive-bred turtles for turtle racing sounds like a great idea. I’m a born and raised Minnesotan (though turtle racing isn’t popular in my area), and I think that as people we have a responsibility to keep traditions alive without needlessly killing wild animals. I also had a wild turtle as a pet for a time. His name was Fred. He was a good turtle. My dad found him on the roadside once, and we decided to keep him. Eventually we realized he was unhealthy in captivity and let him go. I wonder if painted turtles can be bred specifically for racing. Like selecting for the fastest turtles every year in order to make the turtles faster and faster. In order to avoid conflicting with the breeding season, I think it’d be good to do these races in spring instead of summer.

Snails during snail races are treated better then these Turtles!!! Geesus!

At first I thought “oh ok the kids are mishandling them and perhaps they could ease up on the bucket smashing”. But OVER 50 PERCENT DIE IN CAPTIVITY?! And no one is bothered by this??? I would be upset if even 10% were dying.

This is so sad 🥺😢but I’m happy you guys made this video to help people realize how harmful this event really is to the poor turtles❤ love your channel 😁😊❤️😘

Thank you for this. As someone who has gone to Nisswa for several years, I appreciate this.

Them banging the buckets like that made my anxiety spike immediately, like...do none of these people realize how much stress that can cause the turtles? Or the fact you can accidentally hurt them like that? I was terrified *for* those turtles, poor things :( How the hell is this not considered a form of animal abuse?

They could literally just create an RC car race where contestants decorate their cars up as turtles. Or anything else. Literally anything else.

I cant even warch this whole video that is absolutely sickening. Thank you gor bringing awareness and educating people on whu this is such a horrific thing to do.

As an animal lover & do a lot of reptile rescues, I would love for them to send those turtles to me. They would definitely be re-located to their natural habitats. Watching animal cruelty makes my blood boil. Humans are the real monsters. Hopefully more people bring awareness to these kind of behaviors towards animals. Thanks for this video, l definitely be bringing this topic up during my reptile shows as well. Keep up the good work you guys!!

As a lifelong Minnesotan, I really appreciated your coverage of turtle racing.

As a turtle owner myself I can not even begin to express my anger. When I saw the turtles being DROPPED i absolutely lost it. Edit: some ideas I have is the only turtles that can be used HAVE to be captive bred, bucks can NOT be slammed, and anyone under the age of 11 has to have their turtle handled for them

As an MN native, this has been such a problem my whole life. I went once in Nisswa and was so upset...this really needs to change.

This is a tradition in Nisswa MN too, I live in a neighboring town and Whenever we go shopping there when they are doing the races I always go somewhere else till it's done. Thank you for doing this!!

Instead of using real living breathing creatures just use hexbugs, hexbugs are super fun and people could do subtle modifications to make them go faster

This is heartbreaking, the turtles want to go home that is why they're racing... as well as if they aren't moving they're petrified of all the nonsense commotion going on created by humans. Thank you for bringing light to this Emily and Ed.

I could see how something like turtle races could have a positive impact on the herp & reptile community by means of educating good husbandry and conservation to the youth and their parents. Using captive bred turtles would fix the feeding issue, the handling would be improved by education and maybe changing the brick out for some grass. The overall handling of the turtles could be improved. Not specifically the dropping, but the way the race starts could be done with a box and gate. The majority of the handling for the race could be handled by the Race Staff and the contestants (kids) could be at the outer circle with a small piece of food or treat to encourage the turtle to the outer ring. At the beginning and end of the race season, they could have weekends for vendors to show up to help the Reptile community grow (and the city would profit as well). On the same weekends maybe have herps as speakers to discuss topics for those new to the community as well as have some speakers to talk about more advanced topics. If it seems like it sounds like a bigger event than a town of 3,000, then consider the turtle races as an opportunity for Perham to grow their tourism, population, attractions, and more.

I do see the issue but also they are kids. And I'm glad that she made a video because these kids should know that it is harmful. And that kids should stop because once they get older they might end up abusing other animals.

This genuinely made me cry. I can't imagine going through all the pain and stress of being force to run in the heat, banged up and thrown around, stressed, confused, scared, starving and the creature in control's excuse is "They're just turtle. You're all being Karen's. Everybody is so easily offended these days. It's a tradition." A life is a life and none deserve to suffer for any reason.

The bucket tapping REEEEEEALLY hurt my heart. Evil. Evil "event".

I’m in tears… How could this animal cruelty be allowed?!😭

This is so heart breaking. Those poor little babies. I have a wild caught turtle (and some wild toads) (WHICH I feel super bad about doing) but it was about to snow and this little baby hatchling was just not doing well and I had a feeling they wouldn't make it. I took her in and she's got an amazing home now and she is thriving so well. I definitely do regret wild catching her but she's doing so much better. Along with the wild toads, I've taken only three because there was tons around. Didn't think too much of it but still feel bad about that too. But their all thriving very well too. Part of me feels bad I did it but they are taken very well care of and I'll soon be getting a tank upgrade for my toads. I would never support catching wild animals at all but I guess I wasn't in the right mental spot and took them in because I felt so alone (Which sounds so selfish). But I feel like I made the right choice for my turtle and I do everything I can to make all my babies lives amazing. I hope people understand that I regret taking in wild caught animals but like I said, they are all taken care of very well. I need to express my feelings about this because I feel like worst person for wild catching them but in the end I do take care of them really well. (Sorry this is a really big vent but I struggle with alot of mental health problems still and get worried I'm a really bad person) 🖤

The timing of this is almost perfect, there's a city council meeting the second week of July so the feedback they get from the emails should be fresh in their minds and has enough time to build up.

idk if this was heard... but at the beginning of the whole announcement for the race, they said that the participates could take a turtle home if they wanted. So, not only are they taken from the wild, not kept right, and used really badly, they're encouraged to be taken home.

The way he says "return your turtles right over there" like they're tennis balls and not living things that are terrified and just want to get away from this crowd of ignorant apes - it's just gross. Edit: When I made this comment it was right at the start of the video... I'm now at 4:30 and already mortified at the abysmal treatment of these animals. Obviously it's not the kids fault, they should be taught to respect wildlife but clearly don't know any better. This event needs to be completely banned, no questions asked. I don't care if it's "tradition" - torturing wild animals for your own enjoyment is not something that should be celebrated year after year. Thank you for exposing this and trying to do something about it.

Honestly this makes me cry it's so horrible how can they think this is okay thank you for bringing awareness to this

I was horrified when I saw people dropping the turtles and just mistreating them horribly

Generally a turtle/tortoise race from anywhere around here would be you placing down your pet turtle at one end off a track and having someone shake some lettuce or other turtle food at the other end (sometimes it's just a pile) which is just harmless fun to do with your pet. So I was kinda confused initially in this video but this is not good it sucks that they're doing it this way when it can so easily be done without causing harm :(

I love painted turtles, and these are clearly in need of better care, particularly with that mortality rate you cited. I am glad you are trying to build bridges instead of just attacking the event, in the long run that will be better for both turtles and people -- properly managed, I can see something like this really being an opportunity for people to learn about these amazing animals.

I have some ideas 1. Children younger than 8 need a parent to help them race 2. Everyone participating in the race has to also participate in a quick lesson of how to carefully handle the turtles. 3. There is a set of volunteers to watch the racers and any racers mishandling their turtles is disqualified and banned from racing for the week. Permanently banned for the summer after 3rd offense. 4. Rather than the circle, create turtle runs and instead of scaring them forward, have a treat on a stick that you must use to entice the turtles forward. I really like your idea about turtle rescues sponsoring the event. Although the turtle races have a lot of problems it's obviously a tradition that the city holds dear and it would be wonderful if they were able to continue in a more ethical manner.

Love how feather collecting for most bird species is illegal and yet we still have this…

Same with Bullfrog races. My small town has an annual one every year. The bullfrogs are almost always wild caught and afterwards are often killed, I’ve even seen people throw them in the trash alive

I used to have a turtle, but I rescued him. It was in the middle of a drought in Florida, and my grandpa rescued him from the heat

This honestly killed me on the inside. I have about 7 of these kinds of turtles and it makes me so sad.

As SOON as they started hitting the buckets on the ground, I new this was going to be bad

You’d think once they start dying they would stop

This reminds me of that one scene in DragonBall z when Gohan saves a phantom

Is this event still happening? It is a little late watching this. Thank you Emily and Ed for educating me on this.

Imagine thinking a being who feels pain and fear is said that they are just "a turtle" Well..you are just a human, a cruel one at that.

I’ve emailed the mayor & every council member. This is so heartbreaking… I don’t understand how they don’t see the harm in literally banging buckets to scare them and making them run on hot concrete ?! They really need to do better on educating their community… thank you so much for making this video.

" this isn't bad though- " imagine being a turtle, and then being snatched and being forced into a bucket with barely no space with a lot of other turtles, then being put on a brick circle with humans on the middle, and more out on the circle. and then being frightened because of children in the middle of the circle are banging buckets to make you run for a " race " against other turtles, to be horribly handled. ( tail pulling, put upside down ) and after all of that, being into a dog ( cenel??? ) with a kiddie pool, and many turtles dying due to starvation, and heat problems because of this being in summer, and finally when its all done only 10 turtles live.

A fram in my state had a great way to combat these kind of races and make it more like a true competition. Kids will race rubber duckies using a hand pump so the faster the kid pumps, the more water there is to flush the rubber duckie faster. No animals harmed, it gets you worker hard, and anyone can do it for free to little cost.

I’m getting pretty tired of “traditions” of exploiting and abusing animals

Props for bringing awareness. It must be scary trying to talk about controversial topics on your channel but I appreciate you using your voice to educate others!

This made me cry… and Dairy Queen supporting it makes me sick

This is disgusting and it was so hard to watch. What's worse is that the kids often race them without parent supervision and kids dont understand how to handle and treat these turtles. and when that turtle was drop on its back I audibly gasped it's awful. I don't think many of them know but heavy stress levels can straight up kill some reptiles. I don't know for certain about these turtles but I know plenty of other reptiles can't handle stress and literally end up dying as a result. I'm praying that we are able to fix this or at least improve the current condition of things. The sad thing is, a lot of people just don't care about the animals and it's truly sad. Not all of them don't care but a lot of them don't. And it's not like we can expect young children to understand that but once again THATS WHY THERE NEEDS TO BE ADULT SUPERVISION! Thank you for shedding light on this huge mistreatment of turtles and the sad reality of these sort of events. Love the work you guys do ❤️