Snapping turtle

My dear friend of the North,

You know not of which you speak. Box turtles are cute and always a welcome sight in any yard. Snapping turtles are something altogether different. They are LARGE but even more importantly, they are MEAN. Others are not exagerating when they say that they can and will take a finger or part of a foot off. The largest of the bunch, alligator snapping turtles, can grow to be over 200 pounds and they occasionally attack swimmers. They can never be domesticated but they have been used to find human corpses in water because they love to eat decaying flesh.

http://www.panda.org/kids/wildlife/fmturtle.htm

Shagnasty, I have recently relocated to Maryland, where there are both kinds. Both have been in the yard this week. The snapper was a baby, about a foot long shell, and just about took of Dave’s foot.

My dear shaggy friend,

I have lived here in Maryland for my whole life, and I can assure you that both snappers and box turtles are common. Considering that we live next to a small lake surrounded by woods, both consider our locale turtle paradise. Believe me, these were two different turtles, one of each species, and I used a stick to push the small snapper into a bucket for relocation to the pond while picking up the box turtle and sticking it in the same to be observed by the buglet later.

One more reason I only swim in pools.

Weird though. Since you guys seem to be turtle experts, let me run this 'un heah by ya.

A month back, my friend and I were carpooling back from work. We passed an animal that looked part turtle, part komodo dragon. It had a really dark thick turtle shell, but it also had a long neck and tail. The head seemed way too big to fit in the shell, and the whole thing looked to weigh a good 100 pounds or more. Biggest damn turtle I’d ever seen.

We talked for a week about the “prehistoric komodo turtle” we’d seen, but no one believed us. Any ideas what it may have been?

Of course, the next week we passed a stark naked man on the road, and we sort of forgot about the bigass turtle.

shrew - the whole shell thing would mean that what you saw was a turtle and what with a head too big for the shell, long tail, and a weight you estimate to be 100lbs plus…

Alligator Snapping Turtle.

I would find the turtle so much more interesting than some buck naked wacko on the road.

Son of a bitch.

Son of a bitch again.
I’d better check on the neighhbors.

'Course, I * really* don’t like that guy with the auto restoration business across the street and his damn electric sander…

Heh. I was unfamiliar with the term “snapping turtle”, and I opened the thread hoping to find cool stories about turtles losing it, and shooting all their former colleagues at the turtle post office.

What?

They would truly viscious with semi automatic weapons, but they don’t work well under water.

Weirdo Yurpeen.

I shall refrain from making the obvious joke about the speed of the mail.

This has degenerated from how to get the SOB out of my pool to samming Uncle Slam.
Er, unking Slam Sam.

Whatever.

The coward just showed his ugly face at depth last night. I could swear that a middle claw was upraised in a rude gesture as he sank beneath the waves.

Well, this is rural Georgia. Seeing a bigass turtle might be weird, but seeing a buck naked man in public is downright apocalyptic.

But did he have a purty mouth? :smiley:

Used to have a box turtle for a pet. Stinky little thing, but cute as hell.

Dutch boys… if it isn’t about fingering dikes, it’s just not worth knowing.

:slight_smile:

That whole stretch is good for turtles, snappers and otherwise. The old canal basin on the other side of the tracks is perfect for them, and the portion of the basin on your side of the tracks isn’t bad either. Hell, back when I lived up on the Earlton, above town, we found an 18" snapper (common variety) in our swimming pool one season, about half a mile from the nearest running water, and probably a mile and a half from the nearest sizeable running water. Damn thing bit houlfway through a broomstick, and weighed about 50 pounds…

Get thee down to Tidings park and take the Marsh Boardwalk around towards the Lighthouse… You should see all manner of interesting stuff.

Ginger, get ready for snakes… Also: Box turtles may look all cute and what-not, but they’ll eat the the hell out of your tomatoes.

They are just trying to make a living, as we all are.
My money is where my mouth is, attempting to capture him rather than finding a firearm (mine were all in the fire) and sending him to reptile hell.

Why, you wanna make 'im squeal like a…turtle?

:wink:

Here, for Coldfire, is a swell photo of a snapper. Yikes, huh? The same site offers a guide to handling, but it’s with a pretty small snapper.

Yer best bet may be to get it to bite a large stick/broomhandle, pull it out of the water and onto ground, then scoop it up it from the back with a square shovel. I’ve helped one across the road this way, and it worked well, but is better as a two person job. And heed the cautions about that bite; snappers look big and lunky, but are lightning quick when it comes to biting, and, most importantly, don’t let go, so definitely have someone there with you, just in case. Don’t use a net, it’ll be hard to get the snapper in it in the first place, and a real problem untangling his claws and jaws from it upon release.

On that note, maybe it would be best to contact your local animal control, or state wildlife agency. They may be able to send someone out to help ya. Good luck!

Nah… Just a good welded wire fabric cage. That’s all.

This thread is giving me a turtle phobia.