A turtle in Geiger Park Lake in Deer Park, New York, was found zip-tied inside a cage, held underwater, with a fishhook stuck in its mouth. Town of Babylon park rangers pulled the cage from the water while investigating an unrelated complaint, and rushed the turtle to West Islip Veterinary Hospital. It survived for two days before dying on Aug. 25.

This wasn't an accident. Someone deliberately restrained a living animal and left it to drown. The Suffolk County SPCA has raised the reward for information leading to an arrest to $3,000, with the New York State Humane Association contributing an extra $1,000 on top of the SPCA's original offer. That tells you how seriously investigators are taking this, and it should tell the public the same thing: someone out there knows who did this.

We're calling on the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office and the Suffolk County SPCA to pursue this case to the fullest extent the law allows, and to make sure whoever tortured this turtle faces real consequences, not a fine that amounts to a slap on the wrist. We're also calling for stronger, consistently enforced animal cruelty penalties in Suffolk County, so an act like this is treated as the crime it is, not a footnote.

If you saw or heard anything near Geiger Park Lake, contact the Suffolk County SPCA. If you didn't, you can still help by demanding the people investigating this case have the public pressure behind them to see it through.

Sign the petition to demand justice for this turtle, before another animal at Geiger Park Lake meets the same fate.