Look what I found in my backyard this evening......

[water_sprite]

Yikes!  Don't know where he came from or where he was going but he was much too close to my largest pond w/tropicals.  Didn't want him in my farm pond either! 

So we put him in the back of the pickup and took him to a creek, far, far away from my house!

Brenda

[tracey_shafer]

OMG!!!
Good thing you got him before he got in the pond

[miguynmkoi]

  Wow what kind of Turtle is this one?!  Don't give it any more soda!  Likely to open the back of your truck like a tin can with those claws 

[water_sprite]

It's an alligator snapping turtle.  Very strong jaws and very aggressive!

Glad he wasn't in my pond to step on.  I like having all my toes!

[landey1230]

Don't they crawl into a deep hole during the winter?  I'm sure it belongs to someone near your house.  That ugly little thing.

[Holldoll]

Wow that is ugly! I saw a show on Animal Planet with those things!

[Rad Michelle]

aww keep him and name him koopa

[Bullfrog]

Yep folks, thats east Texas. We have those ugly critters everywhere down here and that was a small one. Their neck can reach the back of their shell over the top and it gets as big as a person's arm. I have a friend who runs trotlines and he found a huge Loggerhead turtle drowned on his trotline. It was already dead and he wanted the shell and the skull so he kicked up a red ant bed and let them do their thing. When the deed was done he put the shell up on his roof to dry. It's a very small road deep in the country and out in the woods.

He got a call at work and it was a game warden who said "We need to have a talk about that endangered species that you have drying on your roof." He got a ticket and the fine was $75.00 but later he got a letter from the Texas Parks and Wildlife saying that he owed $700.00 restitution based on the age of the turtle, they took the shell to boot.

[Kat]

So glad one of those cannot get into any of my ponds 

[Indiana Karen]

Good thing you found him before he found your fish.  We lost our two biggest butterfly koi to a snapper two years ago.

[Freddie Peepers]

 This is the time of the year that snapping turtles are on the move. I guess they are "looking for love". We found one in the parking lot at work,on the asphalt, and a long ways from any water source. Down south they can get enormous, several hundred pounds even. Would not want to wake up and find that in my pond

[shelgirl]

I found this bugger in my back yard.

[Julles]

Bullfrog, how did the warden know the turtle shell was up there?  Someone spotted it from the air, and ratted on your friend?

[PondmaninAL]

There use to be a place in Panama City, FL called the Snakeatorium. It was like a mini zoo with a few gators, dozens of venomous snakes that they milked for anti-venom, a few other various animals, and an alligator snapping turtle the size of a large kiddie pool. What got me was the guy walking in the middle of all those snakes.

[Bullfrog]

Bullfrog, how did the warden know the turtle shell was up there?  Someone spotted it from the air, and ratted on your friend?

Allmost Julles. This is a very small road way out in the country that runs along the river, only a dozen or so houses are there and they are all river rats, everyone knows everyone and they all borrow a cup of sugar from each other and help each other out. But alas, there is a boat launch at the end of the road that a lot of other people use. The game warden was very polite about it and explained that he was just doing his job as someone turned him in to "Operation Game Thief". The TP&W pays dollars for people who turn in poachers. Somebody drove by and saw it, his roof sloped toward the road.

The other thing is he has an L shaped front porch. The game warden was standing on his porch and right around the corner he had two three foot Timber Rattler skins nailed to a board and drying on the wall, another endangered species. In their infinite wisdom, the TP&W stocked 3,000 Timber Rattlers and black Bears back into the Big Thicket area to repopulate the species. Timber Rattlers can grow up to 8 feet and these poisonous snakes are now crawling into people's yards. He killed these snakss in his own yard before they bit his kids or dog but he would be heavily fined if they found out.

As far as the Black Bears go, their food sources are not as prevalent as they were back then so they will soon be rooting through people's garbage cans or snatching sleeping babies out of an outdoor playpen when mom goes in for a soda. We had a healthy debate on another forum that I started, would the Texas Parks and Wildlife be liable if someone was bitten and killed by a rattlesnake that was put ther by them? A snake that wasn't there until they restocked them into their neighborhood? What if God forbid  baby or small child is snatched up and eatenby a bear that no longer has the food source that once was there? Or just say the kids are playing in the nearby woods and get near a mother with cubs?

Any thoughts on this?