How do I make my pond hospitable to turtles?

[Miami Al]

About 1.5 years ago, a turtle moved into our pond, my wife was in heaven. During a massive storm of 3 days of non-stop raining (we got 20 inches of rain in my 18 inch pond) and the chemistry was off, lots of things died... several fish, etc.

Well, we found a little turtle in the skimmer of our pool so I relocated him to the pond. He seemed happy for a while. Too much fish food and he seemed not healthy, but we stopped the feeding and he got back to normal. There are plenty of plants and small fish for him to eat.

Well, we just had about 3 or 4 inches of rain, which brings things like the basking log to the surface. I assume he crawled out. My wife is devastated. Any suggestions for making ponds and the pond area welcoming to turles so they stay?

 

[JRS]

Food, shelter/space are the primary needs but the only way to guarantee they stay is a fence or enclosure of some type. Do you know what type-a local cooter perhaps? If they are big enough to mate could have went in search of that or a non mated female will still produce eggs and may have left the water to nest.

 

[GBBUDD]

we enjoyed our couple months we had from a couple visitors

 

[Miami Al]

Food, shelter/space are the primary needs but the only way to guarantee they stay is a fence or enclosure of some type. Do you know what type-a local cooter perhaps? If they are big enough to mate could have went in search of that or a non mated female will still produce eggs and may have left the water to nest.

It was tiny, 1.5" shell? Second time we had a visitor. We have lots of aquatic plants, shelter, a basking log that the turtle was loving.

I'm not sure what we can add to the pond to improve the food access.