# Snapping Turtle Questions



## cireofmi (Feb 13, 2001)

A few questions about snapping turtles. The reason I am asking is that I found a small baby snapping turtle down by the Grand River in downtown Grand Rapids. Is is unusual to find baby snapping turtles this time of year? How big/quick do they grow? Is it aslo unusual to find them in downtown Grand Rapids?


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## trout (Jan 17, 2000)

How big is Baby?
Hatchlings are about as big as a quarter maybe a tad bigger .50 cents?

If you have any water courses or ditches,retention ponds etc you'll see snappers.
Turtles grow throughout their life span and it takes 5-10 years for snappers to get to any real size.
Years ago we had one in a fish tank that ate goldfish it was fun to watch it.
I think they have to be 12" carapace length to keep.
Carapace is the top shell, Plastron is the bottom of the animals shell.


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## Banditto (Jun 9, 2000)

My parents live on the Clinton River. There is one time of year (fall perhaps?) when the snappers would travel inland to do their "thing."

Every couple years one of size would happen up by the back porch looking for love in all the wrong places. We would gently point him back into the right direction as they have a fierce bite as we all know. 

It is said you can hold them by the tail and they mostly can't get you, but be aware that doing that you have a chance of damaging the cartilidge being his tailbone isn't meant to support his body weight. So I deem that as cruelty.


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## cireofmi (Feb 13, 2001)

This was a hatchling then. I would say it was about the size of fifty cent piece. Should there be more in the area? Might go down again this week and see if there are anymore.


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## trout (Jan 17, 2000)

Most likely there are more....but maybe not.
About one in 100 make it to adult size as everything out there will eat baby turtles. Fish, *****, birds, other turtles,mink well you get the idea.
Controlling the harvest size is a good way to insure we don't harm populations.
Michigan has several turtle species that are protected or of special concern.
Don't take turtles from the wild for pets, most do poorly in captivity.
Not to mention the belong in the wild.
Trapping/furhavesting is one way to help protect turtle nests from attack.
There is evidence that wading stream fishermen who walk the sand bar areas damage Wood turtle nesting site as well, please stay in the water as much as possible.
If you stop to help a turtle in the road, release it on the side it was heading.
Turtles have a small home range and know their evirons quite well.
Turtles are the only reptiles that can be trained, so they do have intelliegence to some degree.

Pond owners can leave part of their ponds edges natural to allow cover sites for turtles, Also a large tree or log on the waters surface, will allow basking turtle species a place to warm up in the sun.
Some turtles can live to be over 100 years in age.


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## Steve (Jan 15, 2000)

Snappers will be found anywhere there is water nearby even after a nuclear war.


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## Rupestris (Aug 25, 2000)

> How big/quick do they grow?


 There was a show on The Discovery Channel over the weekend that mentioned Snapping Turtles. They were reported to grow, on average, one pound per year.
An Alligator Snapper from the southern states can grow to more than 100lbs and live about 120 years.


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## Banditto (Jun 9, 2000)

I saw a snapper when I was a kid in Boy Scouts that was near the size of a galvanized garbage can lid. We used to catch them a lot around where I grew up that got big, but that one stood out as unusual. 

I would imagine he could have easily snapped off my hand.


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## kingfisher2 (Mar 22, 2001)

Intersting facts Trout. I have stopped many times for turtles in the road and never knew to place them on the side they were facing.....

The one turtle we use to see on a regular basis near the cabin and don't anymore is the box turtle. I was told they can only produce fertilized eggs once every four years and the chances of them finding a mate during their fertile time isn't the greatest...do you know if that's true????

Marc


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## ESOX (Nov 20, 2000)

There are a lot more snappers around than most people are aware of. Every southern MI warmwater river is home to good numbers of them. Most inland lakes have them. Lake St Clair has quite a few, I saw one this year that had a carapace at least 28" long whan wading near a marshy section of shoreline. The reason most people aren't aware of just how many snappers are around is that the snappers very seldom venture out of the water except to breed.


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## Youper (Jul 8, 2001)

When I was a kid I used to fish Hemlock lake in Hillsdale county for bullheads in the evening. About a hour after dark the bullheads would stop hitting, and I would start catching small(6")snapping turtles. This would happen almost every night. I learned that after the snapping turtles started to hit, I would not catch any more fish that night. It was also fairly common to catch softshell turtles while casting for bass.

One time in southern Wisconson I was pike fishing, using a perch for bait on a treble hook with a bobber. The bobber went down, and I hauled in. The weight was incredibly heavy, but no fight to it. When I hauled it up to the boat, I had a huge snapper on that treble hook. The head of the turtle was the size of both of my fists together. They have a very hard mouth, so the hook wasn't embedded, but it was stuck into the bone. My uncle, my dad and I were all in this 12' rowboat, so we didn't have room to deal with that huge cooter. I used a long forcepts that I keep for removing gut hooks to unhook the snap at the end of the leader. As soon as the snap was undone, the weight of the turtle pulled the rest of the snap straight, and away he went.


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## cireofmi (Feb 13, 2001)

Thank you for the replies. I just really find it hard to believe that there would be one were I found it. If the river doesn't smell too bad from the raw sewage, I am going back down there tomorrow and see if it is down in there still. Is the Snapping Turtle population at okay levels?


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## trout (Jan 17, 2000)

> I was told they can only produce fertilized eggs once every four years and the chances of them finding a mate during their fertile time isn't the greatest...do you know if that's true????


 Females can lay fertile eggs for up to four years after mating. Just to clear that up. I had to look at the referances here 

Snappers are doing OK in Michigan, the DNR has rules on collecting and harvesting all of our reptiles and amphibians.
These Laws are in place to insure the future of these little known by many, creatures.
I think the record weight for a Michigan snapper is about 89 pounds.
I have read accounts from the 1800s that exceeded this weight.


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## Lunker (Aug 27, 2001)

Youper ,
Funny you should mention that turtle population on Hemlock. I spent many a weekends there as a kid and all through high school. That was the only lake I ever lost a whole stringer of perch and jumbo pumpkinseeds to turtles. I went to put another gill on and HOLY MOSES where did their bodies go!! They can munch em fast as ...all that was left were the heads!

Ive also caught a snapper so big i could only get its head and a few more inches of shell on the shore. Its paws were as big as my hands with my fingers curled. It broke the line with a few snaps of its huge beak. This was in a farmers irrigation pond full of huge goldfish. The good thing is I had a witness with me that time and it was my little brother and he still cant get over it) Ive seen them surface in another local pond with heads so big they scared me from the shore.


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## Youper (Jul 8, 2001)

Lunker,

One day my youngest sister was fishing off our dock on Hemlock lake, and she had a few bluegills on her stringer. HAD, till a two foot long bowfin, or dogfish as some call them, ate them off her stringer.

Also in that lake was a five foot long gar. I used to stand up in my boat and paddle with one oar so I could look over the bottom. One day I noticed a log that had never been there before. While I was looking at it, one end of the log swished its tail. I was fishing with an 18' cane pole, and eased my bait out of the water because I didn't want to have to give my pole to Mr. Gar. This was in about six feet of water over on that western side where it was all woods. I haven't fished that lake since 1980. Is that side still undeveloped. I supose it might be, because it was very low ground there.


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## Lunker (Aug 27, 2001)

I ice fished it last winter and I m not sure which side is the western side but if its the side where the old Church camp was....thats now leveled and a huge brick cottage is there on the shore. I didnt notice anymore changes really... I was too cold. )

Maybe that was a dogfish that nabbed em. It sure was fast about it. Very interesting...


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## Randy Kidd (Apr 21, 2001)

Lunker said:


> Youper ,
> Funny you should mention that turtle population on Hemlock. I spent many a weekends there as a kid and all through high school. That was the only lake I ever lost a whole stringer of perch and jumbo pumpkinseeds to turtles. I went to put another gill on and HOLY MOSES where did their bodies go!! They can munch em fast as ...all that was left were the heads!


Had the same thing happen to me on Duck lake in Highland back in the 60s, Made the mistake of putting a huge stringer of gills over the side while we fished, when we pulled it up to leave a back bay area there were only heads left. Went to the wire basket after that.


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## Linda G. (Mar 28, 2002)

People used to take the turtle season seriously up here, and would go out and catch them, then make an excellent turtle chowder. That practice has fallen off in the last twenty years, it takes time to catch and field dress a big old snapper, just getting the shell off takes a major effort. 

As a result, snappers are now so common on most northern MI lakes they are considered a nuisance and a predatory threat to fish and shore nesting birds. Snappers are known to eat ducklings, goslings, and all types of newly hatched waterfowl, including common loons. They are everywhere, and every once in a while I'll hear about one that grabs a small dog that made the mistake of wading. 

When my boys were small, they came screaming in the door once yelling about a huge turtle that had just climbed out of the lake. I went down to the lake edge, and found a large, probably 100+ pounds, snapper, laying her eggs in the sand. She ignored us, and we sat there and watched her for a while. She was out there all day before heading back to the water. She laid more than 100 little rubbery golf ball like white eggs about six inches down. Dug the nest out with her rear feet. Awesome to watch.

I don't know when they breed, but she laid her eggs right around Memorial Day. 

Told my neighbor about it, who was all upset we didn't come and get him. Turned out he had turtle soup in mind...  

It was not uncommon to see newly hatched snappers around that area every year in late August, early September. A lot of them became mink, bird, or raccoon chow, as did a lot of the nests.


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## cireofmi (Feb 13, 2001)

My only other experience with a snapping turtle was at church camp. Fishing a surface bait on the pond and happened to hit one with my lure. It snapped at the lure but didnt get snagged on the hooks thankfully. The Pastor of that church we went with would catch them to eat.


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