After picking up my youngest at the pool, we were driving home on a wide suburban road when we spied a Mom and her child huddled over a large brown object. We pulled over and joined the little group. Turned out to be a snapping turtle larger than a dinner plate lounging in the middle of the street. He must have crawled up from a nearby creek. The Mom was trying to shoo him back into the weeds with a coat hanger. This bad boy was NOT happy about the activity. As extreme luck would have it, along came a landscaping truck with a nice large scooping shovel. He gently shoveled him up and placed him back in the weeds. That turtle was faster than I ever imagined, and his claws and snapper were not inviting, or remotely cute. But we're happy he's off the road. I get a kick out of things like this - I'm just a dork who's easily entertained.
5 comments:
Snapping turtles scare the bejeesus out of me. They can get huge and mean.
Embrace your inner dork.
Those things are SCARY! Good job protecting it though. Your ecosystem will thank you for it!
Yay for turtle rescue. All the cool kids are doing it.
I'm with Michael. When I was a kid I had a morbid fear of snapping turtles after a summer camp visit from the nature expert who demonstrated the snapping power of the turtle (a full size 2' adult) with a big stick that the turtle bit in two.
Now I think they're really cool. My daughter and I found a baby no more than 3" across walking through the grass on an outdoor shooting range, a good 3 or 400 yards from the nearest water. She felt like a hero returning it to a marshy area.
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