Hello, I am Eric B. Holt, the Creator, and owner of the material on this site.  I have included this page to give site users an idea of who I am and what I and this website is all about.

My first experience with turtles came in Chicago in the early 1970's at the age of three. Like most hobbyists my first turtles were Red-eared Sliders. Unfortunately, like most turtles sold in those days, they didn't live long. Of course, back then there weren't the commercial foods, specialized equipment, and care information that is readily available today. Despite, perhaps because of, so grim a beginning I was hooked and wanted to try again and this time do better.

In the time between all of that I have traveled much of the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. Both as a military dependent and in active duty in the USAF for 5 years with First Combat Communications. I also completed a degree in Biology from the University of Central Florida. In  35+ years of turtle keeping I have have kept over 85 species of turtle and tortoise at one time or another and bred many of them. My current collection is made up of 900+ turtles and the species that I keep can be seen on this site.

Mission Statement

1) Learn all that I can about the exotics under my care, while breeding them over several generations without inbreeding.

2) Learn all that I can about the turtles native to the past and present of Florida and when necessary intercede on their behalf, such as my work with road-killed and road-injured turtles.

3) Use this site and other media like books and magazines, along with presentations to distribute the information that comes from my work and also what I gather from other sources.

4) Support hobbyists of like mind and promote responsible keeping of these amazing animals.

5) Crush the bastards that deserve it and ruin it for those that are in the hobby only for the money. That may sound unnecessary, but if you had seen some of the things that I have in the reptile trade over the years, you would probably want to weed out the undesirables as well.

Empire of the Turtle

The name came to me in 1995 while reading a story about one of the Khans. I can't remember now if it was Genghis or one of his sons. He used large turtle statues which held inscribed tablets that informed the reader that the land beyond these markers was the Khan's.

His empire.

I had occasionally tried to come up with a name to be the umbrella under which all my turtle activities could occur. Many of the obvious ones were taken and I didn't want anything like Eric's Turtles or Holt's Herps.  Perhaps if it had been years later I would have chosen "The Passion of the Chelonia".

Empire of the Turtle worked for me. It made sense in that the true Empire of the Turtles is marked in over 200 million years of time and multi continental space by the turtles themselves. I also realized how much of my life is marked by turtles. From the people I know, my career path, the hobbies I am involved in, etc. SO much of it is because of turtles. And it all started harmlessly enough with two Red-eared Sliders in the south side of Chicago.

It didn't hurt that the name was also big enough for my ego.