On March 15th 1991 Hà Đình Đức happened to be passing Hồ Gươm, the small lake at the center of Hanoi, when he saw its giant softshell turtle surface. Đức went home and marked the date on his calendar. He was a zoologist, but the encounter created an “invisible bond” between himself and the turtle, almost “hypnotizing” him. He said it changed the course of his life. A research project later gave him an official reason to study the animal. When the project ended, he carried on. For the next quarter-century he photographed it, recorded its appearances and worried about its health. Hanoians came to know him as “Professor Turtle” or simply “Đức Rùa”. Very few of these enormous freshwater turtles survived and little was known about the individual in Hồ Gươm. But Đức also saw the turtle as inseparable from the lake and the legend associated with it. According to the 15th-century story, Lê Lợi led a rebellion that drove Ming forces from Vietnam with the help of a magical sword. After his victory he was boating on the lake when a golden turtle surfaced and reclaimed the weapon for its divine owner. The lake became Hồ Hoàn Kiếm, the Lake of the Returned Sword. For Đức, the survival of a giant turtle in the lake made the old story tangible. The animal was the lake’s “soul”, by his telling. Đức traveled Vietnam looking for other turtles that might be related to the one in Hồ Gươm. He hoped…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via This RSS Feed.