For the past few days on our morning Bikesport rides we have seen significant numbers of large alligator snapping turtles. They are impressive and imposing beasts from another era- right out of the Mesozoic period. Very impressive.
Yesterday we noted two such specimens excavating holes to (presumably) lay eggs in. Today we found an exceptional specimen, very large and healthy, trying to cross the road. I picked it up (must have been 12-15 pounds!) and ushered it over the pavement toward the river. It was not very appreciative and snapped at me several times.
My questions are (for the purposes of future rescues and conservation):
Do they want to be near water?
Should their nests be somehow protected if there are eggs in it?
How long does it take the eggs to hatch?
Do they normally range a long way from water?
When we resuce one from the road side, I presume the best thing to do is carry it down to the river bank. Is this right?
I don’t know too much about their behavior/nesting habits etc. I WOULD be very careful moving them around. When I was a kid, my great granddad showed me pictures of one they had to move when working a construction project in NY. The damn thing was about the size of a couple of manhole covers. The pictures included the photo of the thing biting and SNAPPING IN HALF the handle of a shovel. In other words you could very easilly lose fingers and/or a hand.
I figured if you grab them by the back 1/3rd of their shell they are pretty harmless and carry them in a slightly nose-down attitude. It is like carrying a running a chainsaw, you have to stay away from the business end. The range of reach of there neck at most, seems to extend about 1/2 way back the length of their shell. You have to watch their legs too- huge claws. They are amazingly fast considering their size. If you let the mouth get anywhere near your legs or package (i.e. carry the thing to close to your body) they will grab hold of a piece and not let go. In bike shorts and bike shoes- it is slightly sketchy.
You are a brave man picking up a 12 pound snapping turtle to help it cross the road. Please be careful with these animals, as others have posted, they can really do some damage with a full-on snap of their jaws.
I tend to stir clear of the large snappers, but I regularly pick up and help across the road Painted Turtles and small Snappers when out riding near my cottage.
Now I don’t want to sterotype, but last summer a yahoo in a truck who gunned it big time to get past me on my bike( Why do they always have to gun it?) on the cottage road actually steered towards a small turtle that was crossing the road to crush it with his wheel. People like this I think live a life that has absolutly no regard for the natural environment at any level.
Several years ago while channel surfing I stumbled on an episode of “Michigan Outdoors” (a local PBS huntin’ and fishin’ show) where a guy was catching them. It was one of the more impressive things I’ve ever seen. He was wading in a river reaching blindly into holes in the riverbank up to his armpit. Apparently, when snapping turtles are holed up in their dens, they always go in head first so you can reach in and grab them by the hind legs or tail.
Whenever I see stuff like this I wonder who was the crazy human who did it first!
I know from spending time in swamps to avoid them in the water- they have the advantage there. They are pretty dangerous but they have a brain the size of a pea probably and seem farily predictable. They are a lot safer to deal with than sharks, big cats and some nasty primates like baboons and those bikini-stealing monkies in Vietnam.
I had a summer job working for the city maintnenance dept. for a few summers in college. Someone had caught a snapper and had it in the back of a pickup. He was smaller in size, maybe the size of a frisbee. They move fast! someone was taunting him from the other side of the pickup bed, and he lunged across that truck A LOT faster than I would have ever thought.
No Gov’t employee’s or turtles were hurt during this incident. All participatants were relocated to their natural environment.
Hey Tom, I read your article on Colnago bikes last night. You still ride one? Still like it?
Alligator snappers are beasts of the southern US. You are encountering what are referred to as “normal snappers.” Normal snappers may get up to the 20-25lb range in northern areas. Alligator snappers can be 50lbs +.
During my young redneck years I actually trapped snapping turtles as the meat is very highly regarded.
Beyond that, I can’t answer your questions but often se them dead on the road this time of the year which is a sad sight. In the midwest other riders made fun of me because I always stopped to move box turtles off the road so think it is pretty cool you are trying to help, but hopefully your thanks is not in the way of a missing digit.
Alligator snappers are beasts of the southern US. You are encountering what are referred to as “normal snappers.”
I grew up in Texas, we used to catch Alligator snappers in the “bayous” (drainage ditches). So I’m pretty familiar with them. Sure enough, they’re up here in Michigan. My wife and I moved one off the road a couple weeks ago. Definitely non-indigenous, possibly pet-release, who knows. But the slow, muddy Rouge River running through much of the area where Demerly rides, and the surrounding marshy flood plains in some ares - are a perfect habitat.
Up north the snappers don’t get too big, and when they do get big they stay in or very near the water. The ones that you see crossing the road usually are the smaller ones; smaller than a trash can lid.
When I play with the turtles, I usually just grab them by the tail.
The regular snappers really aren’t that aggressive, just don’t try and french kiss them.
That method of turtle hunting another poster described I’ve not seen before but it does remind me of stumping.
Stumping is a method of catfishing where typically a group of liquored up good ole’ boys wade through the shallows and stick their fist and arm into holes and tree stumps in the hopes of finding a mud cat. Basically you ram your fist into the mouth of the mudcat and he bites down and you wave around this fat mud cat in the air screaming, “Y’all I got me un!”
It’s kind of fun, but when you do see a turtle it’s customary to holler “TURTLE!” and slosh away from that spot with due haste.
Next week on “Things Bored Rednecks Do” I will describe “Fishing With Dynamite”.
It appears that the allligator snapper can be found in the river bottoms of southern Iown. So I suppose, depending on where you are in Mich., it could have been an alligator snapping turtle.
More than likely it’s not an Aligator Snapper, but just a snapping turtle. You can tell the difference between them both by looking at their mouth. Plus, Aligator Snappers live in warmer climates.
An aged Aligator Snappers is HUGE. Yes, they mainly live in the water so bringing them off the road out of harms way back to the river is a good thing. BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN PICKING THEM UP. Even if you pick them up by the last 1/3 of the shell, their necks are long enough to reach around an take a chunk out of you. Even with your good intentions, the turtle know nothing but defense and will try to bite. The safest way to pick up and move a snapper is by the tail. Be sure to hold him/her away from your body so you don’t get bit.
Keep up the Turtle rescue. The friends I ride with are always on the lookout for turtles on the road. We stop and move them off. So far last week between the group we had 3 box turtle rescues.
I’d leave 'em alone. Clearly they’ve come out of the water for a reason, and putting them back in the water is just going to keep them from accomplishing whatever it was they were trying to do. If they get hit by a car, well, it’s just evolution, baby.
