A level 1 turtle attacked me?

So I was in Jade Forest just farming some ghost iron, and I was on the shore of the far side of the map where there is a broken ship, loads of monkeys and turtles. So I was mining a node, and there was one a few meters down the shore - so I ran past a few turtles and them snails, and abruptly one of them turtles attacked me out of no-where! A LEVEL 1 TURTLE!

I was minding my own business farming, and this little fella thought he would attack me... aren't they suppose to be cute? as you can understand I immediately killed the little guy and /spit on him for daring to attack me.

Have Blizzard programmed critters to attack? I did not know they attack high levels, especially a cute turtle. Damn, I hate turtles.