Illinois Boy Stopped From Illegally Selling Turtles on Facebook

August 2013 We received a complaint that a preteen was illegally selling turtles smaller than 4 inches via Facebook. The complainant had attempted to report this case to the police, but his efforts were going nowhere. We immediately alerted the Department of Conservation, and an officer visited the turtle-selling boy and his family, set them straight on the laws, and forced the boy to return all the wild-caught turtles to the local reservoir (where they’d initially been captured) and remove his online posts.