For the last 12 years I have been volunteering for a wildlife rehabber. I do about half of the surgeries on road hit turtles and am very proud of our successful release rate but the most common thing they have me do is respond to calls for injured and displaced wildlife. I got a call about 10pm asking if I felt like "dealing with a moron". I love it when a call starts out that way. Turns out a guy caught a snapping turtle while fishing and decided to bring it home. He had been poking it with a stick to get it to bit at a video camera and his neighbor called it in to animal control. Unfortunately, animal control doesn't have legal jurisdiction over native wildlife so they refused to respond to the call. I went over to the address without knowing any of this. I was greeted politely by the neighbor who had placed the call and I asked where the turtle was. The man who caught it had turned it upside down and placed it in a sterilite tub in his back yard. I thought about talking to the guy to try to use the trip as an education opportunity but his neighbor was very clear that it was a bad idea. I asked him what exactly he expected me to do. He intended to hop the fence and retrieve the turtle, plastic tub and all, but he didn't want to try to handle it or deal with the release. I told him that for legal reasons I could not help with that while I was responding on behalf of the rehab clinic but if he had the turtle I would be happy to handle the release. It was decided that I should go get a big gulp from 7/11 and when I returned he showed me the turtle that all the fuss was about.

IT WAS HUGE!!!
In fact, this is the largest common snapper I have ever laid my hands on.
Turtle was released and swam away VERY quickly. Its amazing to see how an animal can be so clumsy and lumbering on land but so incredibly graceful in the water.

Cool turtle but ... what about the neighbor who caught this? Did the retreival of the snapper cause a war? Anything durogatory said? Retaliation? Any good dirt on the fued ???

Seriously, that is a wopper ...

I have no idea and I plan to keep it that way. It sure seemed like they didn't like each other by what I was told but I never actually saw the guy that caught the turtle. Because I was representing 501(c)(3) Non-Profit (they have enough to deal with) I thought it was best to not be involved in the "drama" portion of the removal.

Wow.

Damn that's a big'n!

Good job man ! Well played !

That shot looks familiar
Got mine noodling in duckweed, he weighed in at a little better than 35lbs
Lots of smaller ones around but these have to be really old.
This one was about ten years back and I havn't seen one this size since.

I'm pretty sure Mike is fondling that snapper in the picture ... yep, she is smiling ...

She was a he, I have another shot where he leaves no doubt.
I didn't see it as appropriate to post.
If he's smiling its because he wanted to take my face off. No fear at all.
I brought him back to the pond in a wheel barrow.
We got within 50' and he decided he'd walk the rest of the way which he did tall and proud.
No rush, no worries, he was bad and he knew it.

Big snappers are cool as he!!

Pre digital days and the twilight of the sun causes this pic to be a bit hard to view but these were two snapping turtles I saw in 2003 during mating season. The one on the top left is I guess the female as she was being pursued by by far the largest snapping turtle I had ever seen in my life!! The pursuee's carapace was at least a foot long - so put that in perspective to the larger one and it is truly unbelievable (the size/fatness of the head is mind boggling). I wish I had better pics - I had seen this turtle one other time but it took off into the deep while I fumbled with my camera. The Piney's still whisper and tell stories to the grandkids of this lunker, I would guess the age of him to be 1000 yrs......

I kick myself all the time for not taking pics way back. I know some may not believe me, but in the early 90's I caught a snapper with a 19 inch carapace.