A turtle in Oceanside, Calif., has good reason to feel shellshocked after being duct-taped to several green balloons and being sent aloft.
The flying turtle was first noticed Sunday afternoon when residents in the neighborhood saw the box turtle stuck in a Eucalyptus tree.
"We look up and there are green and blue balloons up there," Chanelle Wright told KGTV-TV. "He was just swinging his arms trying to get out of it. Somebody had taped him to the balloons."
Wright called the Humane Society to try to get the turtle rescued, but it took an hour before the fire department showed up with a ladder. However, just as crews were about to rescue the turtle, the wind blew it out of the tree down to the ground.
Eyewitnesses who saw the attempted turtle rescue were shocked to think that people could be such snakes as to attach balloons to a turtle's legs.
"What were you thinking? I mean, a turtle is still life. There's no reason to be putting him up in a balloon and sending him off," Joel Rabagos told the Daily Mail.
The turtle wasn't injured in the fall or by the duct tape, but Humane Society officials took it into custody while conducting an investigation into who attached the reptile to the balloons, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
Humane Society spokeswoman Kelli Herwehe told the paper that whoever sent the turtle aloft could face misdemeanor or felony charges of animal cruelty.
Wright told KGTV-TV that if the turtle's owner can't be found, she would consider adopting it.
GALLERY: ANIMALS IN THE NEWS
