Rose Cottage Ltd

Every year, once the geese nesting on the lake leave the nest with their goslings, thoughts turn to “monster” snapping turtles living in the property’s lake. I see them surfacing down at the deep end of the lake and their shells look like garbage can lids in size!

You can read about the first turtle experience here, about what these turtles will happily eat, and why I am at all concerned about moving them out of my lake here.

Today’s episode started with realizing a turtle was in the trap:

Now that he, or she, is in, how to get it out? The turtle has a shell with sharp edges and also has some rather talon-like claws that do tend to get caught in the net.

About 10 minutes later, we almost have the turtle free of the “ties that bind.” The turtle will go into this 30-gallon trashcan for its journey to a larger body of water.

Here’s a little look at size for this particular catch. The human hands seen in the picture above are of an adult male. The trashcan is a 30-gallon size. Estimated weight of this turtle is around 25 lbs so this is a much smaller turtle than the first we removed from the lake in 2008.

If you need to buy a turtle trap, a link to our turtle trap source is in the earlier post. If you’re going to trap and remove a turtle from your lake or pond, please be careful…you could easily lose a finger or toe otherwise. Also please do not transport a turtle to another private lake – you’ll only be creating problems for others.