Coming Through
There’s a tidal pond (or half dozen) on Jamestown Island. As far as I was able to tell, this guy and some of his pals ran things around the pond. Goes where he wants, does what he wants, doesn’t let a little mud get in his way.
I’d head out there and watch the wildlife shift as the tides came in and went out. Got to the point I was watching the tide tables to figure the times I needed to be on the island to get the pictures I wanted.
Update: Courtesy ghostsniper:
I came in the house and yelled up the stairs to my wife, “I lost a snapping turtle in my vehicle!” She came around the corner and asked how someone loses a turtle in their vehicle.
I was coming across the causeway last week at Lake Lemon where the 2 lane road has water up to the edge on both sides and no guardrails and there it was. I didn’t know it was a snapper yet, but I knew I had to save it before someone came by and ran over it.
I picked it up and the aggressive little skudder stretched his neck out and back and tried to get me. Whoa. I quickly got back in my Blazer, sat him on the passenger seat and took off.
He immediately tried to climb between the seat and the console but there was very little room. None the less, he got through. I got back to the house, hoping the whole time that he wouldn’t come over by my feets and bite me.
I looked high and low, even got a flashlight, but he was not to be found. I was stymied. My 2 dr, 4×4 Blazer is small and there was nothing in it but my small jumper box on the back floor. I looked everywhere, 2, 3 times and he was just not findable. So I left both doors open and went in to tell my wife.
She looked in the back and there he was, bigger than Stuttgart, under the rear seat, staring at me with a severely pissed off look on his face and his mouth wide open ready to clamp down. I latched onto him and brought him out to the light of day.
My wife took this pik and then I released him down by the crick at the rear of our property. I’ve looked a couple times since but have not seen him again.
His shell was about 6″ long and 4″ wide. A yung-in.
I came in the house and yelled up the stairs to my wife, “I lost a snapping turtle in my vehicle!”
Great story.
Posted
Good stuff, Ghost!
Make a movie out of that story. Like Snakes on Planes!
Back in my oilfield trash days, there was a safety director who used to carry a turtle shell around with him and describe it as a one-hundred-thousand-dollar turtle. One of the drivers had scooped up a box turtle and tossed it into the cab of his truck, intending to take it home to his kids. A few miles down the road, he came up to a “T” intersection and applied the brakes, but the truck would not stop. The turtle had crawled behind the brake pedal and OOOPSIE! prevented the pedal from depressing fully. The truck blew thru the intersection and wrecked, totaling the tractor and crude oil trailer, which was full. I don’t recall the injuries to the driver but there must have been some, likely serious.
So, Ghostie, it coulda been worse……