Sep 14, 2007

Snapping Turtles Are More Exciting Than Weeds

Roderick encountered this snapping turtle in his driveway. I must admit that I am jealous. My driveway encounters are limited to trash from my neighbor's yard and some weeds I haven't sprayed yet. Snapping turtles are much more exciting than weeds.
I guess this scenario begs the question: what did you do next? Did you leave it be and wear work boots from then on? Did you haul it off to the nearest creek? Or, like I would have done, did you cower in a corner until it ambled off your property?
Thanks for documenting your run-in with this beast, Roderick.


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Snapping turtles have a very slow turning speed, so if you want to move one, just get a big stick, get behind it, and then push it around like a really big shuffleboard puck.

Nebulous Grey said...

I'm so playing shuffleboard with a snapping turtle from now on.
Maybe I can get the retirement home folks down the street on board, too.

Danielle Lea said...

Shuffleboard? I honestly don't think I would risk it. Those things bite and never let go.

Anonymous said...

>Those things bite and never let
>go.

Hence the get behind it part.

When I was younger I lived in a wooded area where snappers sunning themselves on the road was a occasional problem. Either you had to shuffle them off to the side of the road or drive over them.

Anonymous said...

Roderick the Kind gently captured it and turned it loose in a more suitable environment...which it left, and then the police captured it again and again turned it loose in a more suitable environment. And that's where everyone hopes it will stay.

Anonymous said...

Snappers have very specific paths in mind when they set out; it's almost impossible to deter them. When I was a kid, there was a large snapper who lived in the swamp behind our house, and each spring would cross our yard and the road to go to the river in front of our house. Initally, my father tried lifting her off the road on a snow shovel and putting her back in the swamp so that she wouldn't get run over, but she was always back out on the road the next day. Eventually, he got the idea of carrying her (with the shovel) in the direction that she was headed. She stayed in the stream happily for about a week, then returned to the swamp. So my father became a sort of turtle taxi service, hauling her off the road and putting her in whichever body of water she was headed toward.

Jane said...

The other day my handyman Robert told me the story of how he captured a 4ft alligator, incapacitated her with duct tape (seriously), and gave her to his boss's wife as a snapping turtle control measure. He did this, by the way, while egregiously drunk - as he was most of the time in those days. He checked back a year later and the snappers were gone, as were many of the catfish in the pond, but the gator and the bass were still there. Win/win!

Anonymous said...

Jane--
Geez. What a weird story. Robert sounds like quite the inventive guy. I wonder if the alligator's still there.

Anonymous said...

I love teratomarty's story about the turtle taxi service. I wonder what the turtle thought about it--"home, James!"

Jack Ruttan said...

I think the drunk thing is essential to attempt duct taping a crocodile. But more often than not it ends badly, I'm sure.

ZantiMissKnit said...

Snapping turtles aren't usually baskers, like other aquatic freshwater turtles, but they do lay their eggs on land, which is probably what this one was trying to do. I have heard about using a shovel to move one. Whatever you do, don't pick it up with your bare hands -- they can extend their necks surprisingly long.

When my husband was a child, his best friend would reach into the water to pick them up by the tail, and luckily always got the right end and never lost any fingers!

Have you ever seen baby snappers? They're really cute!