Young Turtle Rescuers Win PETA Awards

For Immediate Release:
July 14, 2021

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

Hero to Animals awards are on their way from PETA Kids—PETA’s youth division—to five local children who have spent part of their summer vacation helping turtles safely cross Balsam Avenue as they move between Clear Lake and Ventura Marsh. Ten-year-olds Zacaious Moe and Cole Meyer, 9-year-old Keygan Hoover, and 8-year-olds Blake Meyer and Kasen Wenzel said that they recently saved at least 20 turtles in just one day—and have helped close to 200 altogether.

“I wanted to help the turtles after seeing a pile of dead ones run over by cars, so my friends and I decided to help them across the road,” Kasen tells PETA. “I’d tell other kids that animals sometimes need our help, and it feels really good to help them.”

“A busy road can be a deathtrap for a turtle on the go,” says PETA Senior Director of Youth Programs Marta Holmberg. “These kids have saved hundreds of lives, and PETA Kids hopes their kindness will inspire others to look out for animals in need of a helping hand.”

PETA Kids offers a guide to helping turtles on its website, which notes that even if their shells are cracked or crushed, turtles can remain alive for days or even weeks in agonizing pain. Turtle helpers should guide turtles in the direction in which they’re headed and never leave an animal to suffer. Turtles who have been injured should be taken to a local animal shelter or the nearest veterinarian for help.

PETA Kids—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETAKids.com or follow the group on Facebook or Instagram.