A team from Australia Zoo’s Wildlife Rescue Team released a couple of rescued turtle hatchlings into their native river after their mom became trapped in a fence in the middle of laying her eggs. The mom couldn’t be saved from her injuries, but her babies lived, thanks to the team’s intervention.
The animal-care staff incubated the two eggs that were still in the mother’s body when they found her trapped. The eggs hatched and, when ready, the Wildlife Rescue Team took the hatchlings back to the river and released them.
While the species isn’t specified in the video, the hatchlings appear to be white-throated snapping turtles, thanks to their jagged edges, which the members of the rescue team joked look like “ninja stars”—making the babies “ninja turtles.”
White-throated snapping turtles only live in the central-coastal Queensland area of Australia, and they are critically endangered.
Watch these babies float and swim to freedom starting at 3:56:
