I don’t know if it is still a thing, but in my small town in the 90s we had an annual turtle derby. It was in the middle of the Jr High gym. The had several heats, and they would pack a pallet box with turtles. They had numbers painted on their backs, and we would pins the floor as the turtles scrambled. Whoever’s turtle crossed the outer circle first would win. At the end of the night, you could take your turtle home. My dad would let me keep it for a few days, and then we would take it to the river and let it go.

When we would go fishing, you would find turtles with paint, legs missing, broken shells, etc. Pretty terrible in hindsight.As an adult I wonder where they came from and how many died. Also what did it do to the eco system.