New Year’s Reprieve : Wildlife: Game officials decide to look for new homes for two snapping turtles, found at Castaic Lake, instead of putting them to death.

Two snapping turtles, apparently abandoned as part of a mysterious religious ceremony at Castaic Lake and ordered destroyed by state Department of Fish and Game officials, were granted a New Year’s reprieve Tuesday.

“This is the holiday season,” said Rolph Mall, the department’s deputy regional manager in Los Angeles. “Right now, we’ve got one of our staff members canvassing zoos that might want them.”

But the 10-pound turtles--discovered on a boat dock, surrounded by burning incense--probably owe their good fortune more to the threat of bad publicity than the blessings of goodwill.

The two snappers, nicknamed Nin and Ja by county animal shelter workers after the famous cast of cartoon turtles, were on the brink of execution by lethal injection early Tuesday when state officials began receiving a flurry of calls from newspapers, radio and television reporters.

State officials had first ordered the two turtles transferred to the Wildlife Waystation, an animal shelter in Lake View Terrace. They were en route there before 7 a.m. Tuesday when state wildlife officials decided to kill them instead, as a potential threat to indigenous species.

As media calls began to stack up at the offices of the state Department of Fish and Game in Long Beach however, officials huddled, changed their minds and by lunchtime, the two snappers were munching live goldfish in a makeshift pond at the county’s Castaic animal shelter.

Euthanizing the turtles was likely to draw angry callers if it were widely reported, Mall said, acknowledging that that influenced his decision to spare them, at least temporarily.

“There is a level of animal--maybe the cockroach--that people won’t get excited about and can be killed without thinking about it,” Mall said. “But, hey, I’m a public servant and try to be responsive to the concerns of people.”

The two turtles were found Sunday by lifeguards after a lake visitor noticed them on the main boat launch ramp, surrounded by the burning incense.

Strange? Yes, but not unique.

“Ten years ago, some religious group released 500 small turtles in some kind of ceremony,” said Brian Roney, assistant superintendent for the Castaic Lake Recreation Area. “So there’s a history of turtle releases.”

Although it was unclear what group conducts such a ritual, state Department of Fish and Game biologist Wade Sinnen said colleagues have mentioned similar discoveries at local reservoirs and man-made lakes in public golf courses.

“I’ve heard about this ritual, that it happens, but I don’t know any more about it,” Sinnen said.

Regardless of the circumstances, possession of snapping turtles is prohibited by the same state regulations that also ban crocodiles, cobras and most species of pit vipers.

The snapping turtles, indigenous to southern states such as Florida and parts of South America, would disrupt the natural order of California lakes and streams by preying on fish with no developed defenses if allowed to reproduce in the wild, state officials said.

State officials said that if no zoo or similar institution will provide a home for the turtles, they still will be destroyed.

But Robert Kinder, president of the 300-member San Fernando Valley chapter of the California Turtle and Tortoise Club, said that will not be necessary.

“We have people who will crate up the turtles and ship them by air to friends who live in states where the turtles live,” Kinder said. “People pick them at the airport and within 24 hours they are usually in a lake or swamp where they belong.”