yellow belly slider turtle eggs! help!

Question
Yesterday afternoon i picked a a yellow belly slider turtle up from the road to keep it from getting ran over. It had the intentions of driving it to a body of water to release today. I read up on nutrition and such on the web and found that they ate while in the water. knowing this i drew it a cool shallow bath and placed some fresh greens in the water for it as well as something to crawl up on when it got tired of the water. this morning when i woke up i was surprised to see that there are 12 eggs in the water and i have no idea how to care for them. im worried they may have been damaged since she laid them in cool water and they could have been there for several hours. i just took them out of the water and i have them on a dry towel, what should i do now?

Answer
She probably laid them prematurely because of the stress of being captured and handled. The eggs are infertile having been laid in water. You can keep some as souvenirs if you wish, but they will not hatch after that.

The best thing to do now is to release the turtle as close to its home as you can, as soon as you can.

In the future, when you find a turtle on the road, you can just walk it several yards away from the road in the direction it was moving and it will probably be OK.

I appreciate your compassion! Good luck.