When most families adopt a pet, they look for a cat, dog or maybe even a goldfish. But Nicholas Ling's family chose something a little more obscure - red slider turtles.
Ling estimates roughly 3000 other families in New Zealand are also caring for red slider turtles at home. But recently, his team involved in researching the turtles at the University of Waikato, was contacted about a problem involving these cute little critters.
"One of the problems of a turtle is when people buy them in a pet shop, they're small and cute and kept in an aquarium for the kids. But they outgrow them," Ling said.
"Unless [pet owners] are committed to keeping them long term, they can get up to a large size and for most people, they outgrow the capacity of their tanks, or the families get bored with them, and unfortunately, many [pet owners] release them into the nearest waterway."
Releasing turtles into New Zealand's natural habitat can be disastrous because the turtles have no natural predators here.