Korean Job Discussion Forums

Soul Forest · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Location: Seoul Forest

After the epic yellow-wind clouds of Saturday and Sunday cleared up, some nice weather came in. The sky and weather was amazing on Monday. I noticed that the wind was coming from a different direction than usual, seemed to be blowing more from the East to the West -- so, in other words, the dirty air from China wasn't being blown in. Under that beautiful sky, I rode my bike down the Han River, and stopped for a while along the bank. I saw a dead turtle floating in the water. It was reasonably big. My gut reaction was to assume the turtle died because the river was so dirty -- but of course it's also possible that the turtle peacefully died after a long life. A few questions (though I'm not sure anyone is likely to know or even know where to look): I wonder what species of turtle one would find in the Han River? Would there be a lot of such turtles in the river? Considering that turtles have a fairly long life expectancy, wouldn't it be unusual to come upon one that is deceased? Do you think that the turtle died because the river is dirty? Just how dirty is the river? What other life can be found in the Han River?

VanIslander · Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:37 am Post subject:

a dead pet?

ilovebdt · Joined: 03 Jun 2005 Location: Nr Seoul

Maybe it escaped from the COEX Aquarium

Dan The Chainsawman · Joined: 05 May 2005

Maybe it was murdered by a stingray at coex and they dumped the corpse in the river to hide the evidence.

ilovebdt · Joined: 03 Jun 2005 Location: Nr Seoul

Dan The Chainsawman · Joined: 05 May 2005

There were two of them and I think they were involved in a bizzare sex triangle with one one of the sharks. Might be a jealous lover spat type of deal.

margaret · Joined: 14 Oct 2003

You might try emailing [email protected]. Although they are interested in birds and don't specialize in turtles, they seem very knowledable about the environment and creatures in Korea. If they can't help you they could probably direct you to someone who can.
Margaret

rapier · Joined: 16 Feb 2003

Your turtle is in my reptile guide:

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=38437&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

ulsanchris · Joined: 19 Jun 2003 Location: take a wild guess

Rapier could post a link to the very long thread you made on the different animals in korea. I tried looking for it once but couldn't find it.

ilovebdt · Joined: 03 Jun 2005 Location: Nr Seoul

Soul Forest · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Location: Seoul Forest

I'm amazed by Rapier's post about the reptile life of Korea. There's so much interesting information. Isn't there somewhere that information could be found other than searching through old ESL cafe threads? I wouldn't know where to begin to find that kind of information myself.
Judging from the pictures, I would say the turtle I saw is most likely:
- The Korean Terrapin(Geoclemys reevesii Gray)
- Red-eared slider terrapin(Trachemys scripta elegans)

Probably, the latter is more likely, since the former appears to be a sea-water turtle.

Still, I wonder if it is the river that killed it? Already, the conspiracy theories seem to be proliferating.

Thank you to Margaret for the birdskorea email address. I will email them next week. [/img]

Porter_Goss · Joined: 26 Mar 2006 Location: The Wrong Side of Right

rapier · Joined: 16 Feb 2003

numazawa · Joined: 20 Mar 2005 Location: The Concrete Barnyard

Let this be a lesson to all of you. Never stick your neck out for the Han Gang.

Medic · Joined: 11 Mar 2003

probably a ninja turtle that had too much pizza