They are a lot smarter than they look, I’ve seen some amazing things by watching critters.
Turtles ARE smarter than people realize. I raised an Eastern Painted for years, from the size of a nickel until he was as big as my hand. He was NOT stupid.
Then one night, while he dreamed in his summer ‘kiddie pool’ enclosure, ‘Something’ came along, tore up the chicken wire; and turtle disappeared.
We never found any debris; and I like to think it was just a raccoon who took him to the creek, and Margareto now has many progeny :-)
-JT