Logan Park High School science and biology teacher Yvonne Caulfield found the turtle, which she named Shelley, on January 8 in long grass near Kaikorai Valley College and the Kaikorai Stream.
She was happy to provide the turtle with a temporary home and tasty morsels, but was aware adopting the reptile could lead to a long-term endeavour, as they can live for more than 40 years.
Ms Caulfield said the turtle's owner was exercising her pet in her Hocken St backyard on New Year's Eve.
When she went inside to get a jersey, the 14-year-old turtle - real name Kate - made a break for freedom.
The woman, in her 20s, searched the area for several hours, without success.
"The chances of surviving in cold condi-tions were slim. Kate is infertile but was laying eggs, so may have gone away to dig hole lay them in," Ms Caulfield said in an email to the Otago Daily Times.
Kate had enjoyed returning home to her heat lamp and her usual diet of reconstituted fish product.
Shelley/Kate was identified by Otago Museum living environments co-ordinator Scott Kerr as a "highly adaptable" red-eared slider, Trachemys scripta elegans, which are semiaquatic turtles native to the southern United States. Popular as pets in North America and Europe, they are banned in Australia.
