shell

Six hibernating turtles believed dead in Woodland Park Zoo fire

Six small turtles at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle are believed to be dead after a fire Thursday in the building where they were hibernating for winter, zoo staff said Friday.

six small turtles lived together and died together. living shells absorb heat. from inside the shell all is darkness. a fragment of light and warmth inside protected from everything in the world outside. for months all is darkness and stillness.

According to the zoo, the turtles were in the basement of The Night Exhibit, which formerly housed nocturnal animals, when the fire started around 3:15 p.m.

and then it’s not. the warmth is absorbed to the shell, and then heat. and then the smoke and the roar and the alarm become part of the shell.

“The keepers entered the building and hooked and bagged snakes by headlamp. They waded into pools to rescue turtles and crocodiles,”

a thick shell absorbs anything, even fear, even panic. a sleeping turtle wakes to find its shell sodden with someone else’s dread.

The black-breasted leaf turtles, a male and a female, were 26 years old, according to zoo spokeswoman Gigi Allianic. Of the four Indochinese box turtles, two males were 16 years old; one male was 4 years old and the youngest, of undetermined sex, was 2 years old.

all six slept. all six died. their shells absorbed all, recorded all, in no order. here my life began, here the fire began, here i mated, here i moved, here i was moved. here i hatched. here i grew. here there was pain. here there was hunger. here there was neither. the outside life of the turtle plain and impenetrable in keratin and bone

“Any loss of life is hard, but this loss is especially heartbreaking given the tireless work of our staff to evacuate all of the animals they could reach,” the zoo said in the blog post.

only six died. the ones left behind now record grief in their shells every time they are fed.