Our rural North State Community is very fortunate to live close to nature and is privileged to be surrounded by local wildlife. At Turtle Bay, this means that regular trash cans can encourage unnatural and sometimes dangerous animal behaviors, such as scavenging and ingesting ingredients that are very bad for them. Animals can also get stuck in unhealthy items like plastic rings, bottles, or cans, which sometimes causes death. Wildlife even gets stuck in trash cans, where they thrash and injure themselves trying to get out. 

Additionally, animals' access to trash cans leaves the Turtle Bay campus a mess, with shredded containers, food, and plastics spread all over. This includes the Paul Bunyan Forest Camp, the Arboretum and Gardens, and the River Trails and Sundial Bridge area, too!

Even the animals at Turtle Bay are affected! While our Animal Care staff keeps their enclosures safe, they are regularly taken out of their enclosures on free walks, where they encounter this trash and often try to eat it.

In our educational programming at Turtle Bay, we educate the public about the importance of wildlife-safe trash receptacles.  It’s time that we install them and do our part to keep our campus clean and all wildlife safe.