I’ve seen them before, but his one in my little 12’ x 12’ water garden is a big MF, the shell about a foot long. I poked him with a pole last night and just pissed him off.
I figure to buy a big net and move him to the creek this evening.
Any suggetions on preventing his biting my ass off and keeping him out of the pool?
Put him in a big bucket and take him to the river, exactly what Dave did to one on our driveway last night. No suggestions in the meantime, sorry.
BTW, I had never seen one before. It looked like a dinosaur from behind.
[Snapping Turtle]
Take me to the river,
Drop me in the water…
[/ST]
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
I say, eat the damn thing. Surely your friendly neighborhood search engine can lead you to a website with instructions on how to kill, dress, and cook snapping turtle. Just make sure you remove all the fat- I’ve heard turtle fat can make the meat pretty rank.
Let me know how it tastes.
Oh, Ferrous. That was terrible.
For handling him, hold him by the tail, or by the edges of his shell next to the tail; he shouldn’t be able to reach around and get you from there. And you might want to use a stout stick to keep his jaws occupied - if he’s busy biting the stick, he’s not biting you.
As to how to keep him out of your pool; I’m afraid you’re on your own for that one!
I’m with Thea Logica. Since you are in the south, I would imagine that it is legal season for them for you, at least it is in Mizurah. Best soup or stew you’ll ever eat. Just make sure it’s a regular snapper and not an alligator snapper. The 'gators are rather well protected by the law in most states, and besides, they are mean as all hell and can put a hurt on you. They have a neck like a snake. You’d be amazed at how far back they can reach with it to take a bite, and one that size can easily take a finger off. Scoop him up in a bucket or throw an old blanket or pillowcase around him and then relocate him.
Seriously though… turtle soup is the greatest.
My stepfather once removed one from our pond by getting it to bite down on a branch & then carried him away hanging from the branch.
My dad had a snapper as a pet for 21 years. I second the tail thing. They have very stong tails, grab em by the tail and they cant bite you or scratch you. If you grab by the hind edges of the shell they will scratch the hell out of you. Hind feet have VERY sharp claws.
BTW even raised from a hatchling and in captivity for 21 years it NEVER became “tame” it was always as protective and violent as any cornered wild snapper.
Extreme caution!!! Experienced turtlers are often known as Stubby or Lefty.
I bought a very large net yestarday and he didn’t show.
Perhaps I will use a small child as bait.
Call your local animal control department.
But maybe he just lives in a Van, down by the river?
watch out, because whoever said they had sharo claws is right. he could rip right through a net if it isn’t strong enough.
i worked at a best western back in my junior high days, cutting grass and stuff. the other groundskeeper kid and i were practicing casting our fishing lines into the pond, and he pulled up a huge snapper, that thing’s shell had to be 18" long. i didn;t want to touch it, but he grabbed it by the tail while it pissed on him like a freaking hose. i think we just played with it and made it snap sticks in half until we got bored, and let it shuffle back into the pond.
that was a fun job. i was official snake herder for the summer. whenever anyone saw a snake, i had to catch it and let it go in the field behind the hotel. i’m sure almost all of them made it back to the hotel, where mice flourished. but i liked catching snakes, so i didn’t really care.
Is anyone else getting a visual of “The Crocodile Hunter” in their heads over some of the ideas in this thread? “Oim juss gonna sneak up on this little beauty here - ooowwww! bugger bit moi finger off!!”
Should I capture him, I’m going to take him to work and put him in the toilet in admin.
The shell’s only a foot long? Why, he’s just a young’un! Snappers get considerably bigger than that, IME. Let the little feller go.
Most turtle handlers I’ve known carried them by the tail.
For some reason, after I read this I had a flashback of that Simpsons episode with Grandpa trying to flush the crocodile down the toilet.
I was outside reading a book when I was twelve or so, and something bumped into my leg. I almost reached down to pet it, figuring it was the friendly stray cat that hung around my great-grandmother’s neighborhood. Fortunately I didn’t, because it was a snapping turtle about the size of the one described in the OP. A broom for proding and a large bucket kept the thing from biting me (but he did take a bite out of the broom handle) as I trotted across the street to release him back into the river or pond, whatever body of water it was he came from. If using this method, note that threading the broom through the bucket’s handle keeps your fingers competely out of the reach of him beak.
But you know, Carnivorousplant, he’s probably a reminder from the black op elves that you’re still under surveillance.
Speaking of turtles, there was a Box turtle on our back walk today. Dave put it in a bucket for me to show the boy after school. I let it out and it walked all of 18" in four hours.
Turtles are slow. And they keep showing up in my yard. 31 years without seeing a wild turtle, then two in three days. My, my, the things I have missed.
Ahem. By ‘wild’, I do not mean that it had big scary fangs. Just to reiterate.