Last week, I drove over towards Bloomville in Delaware County to visit a friend. He lives on Robert’s Road. I turned off the Catskill Turnpike and soon approached a large beaver flow on the left. Suddenly, I spotted a rather large snapping turtle on the edge of the blacktop road.
It’s shell was better than a foot wide and had a huge triangular-shaped head.
It’s not unusual to see these large freshwater turtles out this time of the year. It’s their breeding season, and the females will be heading to their nesting sites, where they will be laying their eggs. Rather than going back to check out the turtle, I decided to look for it on the way back home.
Sure enough … the turtle was still where I had seen it, so I stopped. It was a female. I carefully lifted her up a little with her snake-like tail and found numerous eggs in a hole she had dug out with her hind legs and feet. According to Google, snapping turtles will lay between 20 and 50 ping-pong ball size eggs. I quickly returned to my car rather than bothering her any longer.
Once back on the Turnpike Road, I had to stop for another snapper that was slowly approaching the center of the road. It was about half the size of the previous turtle. That one I picked up and moved into the grass on the side of the road where she was heading.
While handling the turtle, I could see why they nicknamed these critters Mud Dragons. She swung her head around and tried to bite me several times. So, if you stop to move a turtle out of the road and possible traffic, make sure you put them back down in the same direction they were traveling.
Carefully pick them up by grabbing the back third of their shell. Those jaws can easily remove a few of your fingers if they grab your hand.
Over the years, I have seen several snapping turtles that people have run over and killed on the highways. It’s a shame. They aren’t dangerous unless provoked. If you come across one while swimming in a pond, they’ll quickly retreat and hide in the mud. They normally aren’t an aggressive creature.
Several times people have asked me if there are snapping turtles in my pond. I supposed there could be, but I’ve never seen one. My pond and the beaver flows nearby create a great habitat for these unique, ancient creatures. They prefer slow moving streams or shallow bodies of water with muddy bottoms. It gives them a place to hide. If you get too close to a snapping turtle by accident, they will just move off slowly into deeper water. Unlike other turtles, snapping turtles cannot contract their heads or feet into their shell, so they snap their powerful jaws to ward off anything that might bother them.
Like other turtles, once their eggs have hatched, the youngsters get no help from their parents. They grow up entirely on their own.
Snapping turtles are omnivorous animals. That means they eat both plants and animals. Their diet consists of insects, worms, snakes, fish and small animals. They will even feed on baby ducks or gosling geese if one happens to swim by, but humans are not on their menu.
I consider myself lucky every time I see one of these wonderful creatures. Seeing two on the same day was definitely a special gift from Mother Nature.