By KAY S. PEDROTTI
Staff Writer

They've named the turtle "Lucky," and now they can't wait for him to return to the woods.

Morgan Woodbury and Katie McInnis, both second-graders at Braelinn Elementary, rescued an Eastern box turtle last week from the banks of a creek near their homes. The turtle was entangled in what appeared to be a plastic scoop-net, possibly used for landing fish.

"He was lucky we found him, and lucky he didn't die," Morgan said. The two girls sought help from Morgan's mother, who brought scissors and cut away as much of the net as she could.

Morgan knew, she said, that the Flat Creek Nature Center takes care of animals that are hurt. They took "Lucky" to the center, where Dennis Chase finished extricating the turtle from the net.

Katie said the net was "all around him, in his mouth, around his neck where he couldn't put his head in, around his feet and everything." The girls said the land turtle was within inches of falling into the small creek, where he would have drowned.

Marcia Brown, nature center director, said that when Lucky gets the okay from the center's volunteer licensed wildlife rehabilitator, "I'll call the girls and we'll go out and let him go." She explained that Eastern box turtles may live their entire lives in an area no larger than a football field, "as long as there's a good food supply." The turtles eat a lot of vegetable matter when they're younger, she added, and move on to worms, insects and other "meat" as they mature, Brown noted.

Morgan said that she knew Lucky should go to the nature center because of the times she has visited and heard about the center's work. Both girls knew they couldn't keep Lucky, but they were really worried that he might have been strangled in the net.

Brown said that she's delighted that the girls knew about the center, and "when something like this happens, I know the kids are listening." Part of her job, she says, is to educate everyone that native animals may never be kept as pets in Georgia.

"Our state has some of the strictest regulations in the U.S. on keeping exotic or native animals as pets," she says. "And there are very good reasons. We have noted that Lucky's tribe is dwindling.

"There are simply not as many Eastern box turtles as there used to be, because of reduced habitats and increasing dangers, like roads."

Morgan and Katie, though inquisitive enough to beg to see the snakes before they left the center on the day of their interview, "did exactly the right thing, not trying to keep the turtle," Brown said. The center has a permanent resident female box turtle who has a deformed foot and cannot return to the wild.

But it looks as if Lucky will be okay, Brown said, and the girls are eager to get him "back where he belongs," Katie said. The two think they may have a future working with animals.

"I want to work someplace like here, or be a vet," Morgan said.