one of my favorite things about my job that i can say to people that sounds utterly ridiculous but is technically 100% true is that one of our sea turtles keeps trying to get me to commit a felony on her behalf and gets SUPER cranky when i wonโt do it
this is because she is spoiled rotten and LOVES head and shell scritches. every time i go to the tank sheโs in to collect water samples while she happens to be awake and swimming near the surface, she sees my hand enter the water and immediately comes over to try and get my attention, headbutting the dive platform and splashing water at me and generally making a huge fuss.
unfortunately, because she is also a ~100yr old green sea turtle, i legally cannot touch her. sheโs a protected species, and a fairly prominent individual at that, and im not one of the aquarists who dives into that tank NOR am i a vet, so iโm not among the handful of people who are ALLOWED to give her scratchies. she knows all of the divers personally, and knows that i am not one of them. she doesnโt care. she wants attention and because sheโs the specialest princess in the entire universe she will do anything in her power to get it.
she also throws a big ol tantrum when i end up not petting her. sheโll stick up her head to snort water at me, slap at the platform and ladder with her fins, and then swim under the dive platform and bump her shell against the bottom โ sheโs a 500lb turtle, which is a lot of weight for her to be throwing around. i usually have to move pretty quick to get off the platform and onto solid ground cuz there have been times where iโve genuinely felt like i was about to lose my balance and REALLY didnโt want to end up falling into the tank.
^ myrtle, throwing a tantrum because she was unsuccessful at peer pressuring me into violating the endangered species act
