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SLO County orders Mid State Fair to turn in its turtles

July 26, 2013

happy-baby-turtle-is-happyThe California Mid State Fair has been caught in the act — it possessed small turtles with the intent to distribute.

The San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department received notification this week that the carnival area of the Mid State Fair was distributing baby turtles as prizes for a ping-pong ball toss game. Officials confiscated the turtles due to health concerns.

Baby turtles can pose serious health risks to individuals with impaired immune systems, according to County Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein. The small turtles can host the bacteria Salmonella, which can cause people severe illness or death.

The Public Health Department advises all recipients of turtles from the fair to turn them in to the Division of Animal Services at 885 Oklahoma Avenue in San Luis Obispo. It also advises against allowing water or any substance that has had contact with the turtles to come in contact with food or food preparation areas.

A tortoise rescue organization will receive the confiscated turtles from the fair.

 


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Shades of pig racing past.


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Way back when I was a youngster we played with these Turtles. They were given away at fairs and you could purchase the little dudes at pet stores for a quarter. We never got sick because back then we could read; and we also took the time to read the warnings that urged us to wash our hands after handling the Turtles.


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Look at that picture. The H.D. is holding that poor little turtle too tightly. Guess they are trying to show what could happen to the turtles if you miss treat them. Let’s put the HD in jail for animal cruelty.


God Bless


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Its kind of like prop 65 why is it only California know these things


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Are you a turtle?


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You bet your sweet *ss I am!


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Welcome brother!


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We had a turtles club on Catalina Island while I was there in the sixties when I lived there. “And don’t you ever forget it”. Those were great times.


Blessings


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Leave the turtles alone gosh darn it. I think the health dept. just fell off the turn-up truck on this one. Give me a break. Maybe little kids tried to eat them with out boiling them first and got sick. When we were kids in the old days we got these all the time. No one got sick. I guess people are weaker these days and have no tolerance for good turtle soup.


You can even use them as bait. Tie them onto the hook with a nice long blood worm. Kids love to watch them squirm on the hook. The health dept. has just stolen one of the right’s of passage for the kids.


The H.D. needs to back off. What they did is as ridiculous as my above comments. Wasting our time like this. God Bless


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Too late. Most people in government need a reason to exist, thus there’s always more rules, regulations and protection from ourselves. It’s so bad and out of hand, one literally needs to live somewhere else for a while to see how goofy we’ve become.


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Why has there been no mention of the Tilt A Whirl cart breaking off the track and falling over with people inside on Sunday night? The whole top half of cart fell off and the underside looked like the whole bearing plate broke. I think that is newsworthy, but have seen zero coverage…


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Now we have the government protecting us from little turtles…to funny.


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Next thing you know, they’ll be warning swimmers, surfers, and kayakers trying to have some fun when there are sharks seen in the water.


Damn intrusive GUBMINT !


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Considering how rare shark attacks are.. it is pretty much a waste of time.


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I would take issue with you comment of the California Mid State Fair caught in the act. It was a VENDOR that was caught, not the Fair.


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Yeah, no way should the fair take responsibility for their vendors… I mean, it’s not 1959 anymore, there’s no responsibility anymore.


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Roy really??? I agree on people taking responsibility but this is a TOTAL different entity. My guess is that the Carnival has a contract with the fair. I bet in that contract the fair spells out that they are not to participate in anything that is illegal. It IS NOT the fair that ran afoul of this, it is the vendor that the fair has a contract with, so PLEASE tell me what I missed???


Or let me put it another way to you Roy. If one of the concert acts (and there have been many over the years) has drugs (and I’m sure at least one has) on it’s tour bus is that the fairs responsibility? Roy there is only so much responsibility you can have for ANOTHER party.


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Just a wild guess here…..


Was the naughty band “The Turtles” ?


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