On the way home from work yesterday I saw a big turtle on the roadway. Traffic was just getting warmed up, and the soft shoulder was going to make it hard for people to avoid hitting it. So, naturally, being the soft-hearted animal lover that I am, I stopped to help the turtle.
It was a snapper. Even if you’ve never seen one before, they’re easy to identify. They’ve got this very menacing, prehistoric sort of look to them, and an attitude to match. This one was about 14 inches from the front to the back of his shell. Big thick legs and tail. Massive head on a long neck. Beady little eyes. Bad smell. Though it was only a mid-sized snapper, it seemed much bigger than actual size as it hissed and glared and released musk at me.
It was obvious from the start that ours was going to be a difficult relationship.
I’ve never tried to pick up a snapper before, but I was pretty clear on the “avoid the biting end” concept. That’s harder than it sounds – I learned right away that those things can pivot a lot faster than you would expect. I managed to get behind him, grabbed the edges of his shell about midway back, and found out just how long and fast his neck really was. ‘Snapping’ doesn’t really capture the full excitement of the noise it makes when it just misses tearing your thumb off.
Ok, new plan. Grab further back on the shell, hang on tight, and hustle.
Pretty good plan. Only a few flaws. First, I still had the distraction of that massive angry head whipping back at me, hissing and snapping. Second, it gave the turtle the opportunity to bring a different set of weapons into play. Those big thick legs, it turns out, have big thick claws at the end of them. They’re not especially sharp claws, but they don’t really have to be. The turtle knew that if he dragged them across my fingers enough times, with enough force, he could shred me to ribbons. And he didn’t waste any time starting on that project.
I started thinking about the nasty pond scum and mud covering those feet and claws. Then I realized that the turtle has defensively, um, pooped at me. Great, swamp muck and snapper poop being surgically crammed into what used to be the flesh of my fingers.
Must. Go. Faster.
I got him to the edge of the pond and sat him down in the mud. No doubt he needed a mud refill, having redistributed his own supply onto the bones of my knuckles. Now, if you were to release, say, a frog like this, it would be gone into the water like a shot. Even a common box turtle would be glad to beat a path into the depths. But this guy? No, he just turned around and read me the snapping turtle riot act. At length. I eventually got tired of listening, told him “You’re welcome”, and headed home.
Later, as I cleaned up my bloodied hands, I pondered… Spider-man got his superpowers following an unfortunate incident with a spider. What kind of super-powers might I have gotten from being scratched up by an angry snapping turtle covered in mud and poop? Let’s see… cranky attitude? scaly legs? thick skin? bad nails? Dang, I already have all of those things!
Maybe I’ll get salmonella. Yay.
