Althouse: I encounter a snapping turtle...

June 12, 2012

I encounter a snapping turtle...

... on the Capital City Bike Trail, outside of Madison, Wisconsin.

47 comments:

Zilla said...: I love snapping turtles. I had an idiot neighbor who used to shoot and kill them simply because he didn't like how they looked so we did not have many around here although this is their native habitat, but he moved away several years ago and I am finally starting to see them again. Once came up to my house one morning recently and my kids were delighted to see it!
We also had a painted turtle some to visit us a few days ago which was pretty cool.
Thanks for sharing your video.; 6/12/12, 5:58 PM
Big Mike said...: You're terrified of a snapping turtle? What! You didn't really need all those fingers and toes, did you?; 6/12/12, 6:02 PM
Ann Althouse said...: When you get to the end of my video, you'll see some selections for other videos of snapping turtles. There's some interesting stuff, with some actual snapping.; 6/12/12, 6:04 PM
AmPowerBlog said...: You should watch that "Turtle Man" on Animal Planet. Now that guy is down with some snapping turtles!; 6/12/12, 6:08 PM
Anonymous said...: Were you on that bike path all by yourself? I hate that my daughter goes jogging alone.; 6/12/12, 6:10 PM
Larry J said...: Snapping turtles have quite bit, but alligator snapping turtles are the stuff of nightmares.; 6/12/12, 6:23 PM
ndspinelli said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/12/12, 6:24 PM
ndspinelli said...: Allie, The Chelsea King murder in San Diego is your, and every parents, nightmare.; 6/12/12, 6:25 PM
Ron said...: The Occupy movement has gone back in their shells I see...; 6/12/12, 6:31 PM
KCFleming said...: Local chapter president of the WCTU.; 6/12/12, 6:39 PM
edutcher said...: Surprised Meade wasn't there to hurl himself in the path of that vicious beast.; 6/12/12, 6:55 PM
Quaestor said...: I watched two of the "related" videos linked at the end. One had a very intrepid turtle valiantly scaling a chain-link fence to into a nearby pond. After struggling to the very top he toppled back to the ground on the same side as he started on. The person shooting the footage didn't offer any help. What a chickenshit dickhead.

The other showed a captive snapper in an aquarium stalking, killing (by drowning) and eating a white mouse that had evident been dropped into the tank for that purpose. The soundtrack was "Happy Together", natch. The title given was "Snapping Turtle Eats Mouse Hole" which nicely sums up the mentality of the person who made the video.; 6/12/12, 6:56 PM
Steve in Toronto said...: We had them in the pond behind my house growing up. I never liked them. It was sad seeing the number of ducklings our resident mallard produced dwindle over the course of the summer.; 6/12/12, 6:59 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: I wonder how it would taste.; 6/12/12, 7:04 PM
pm317 said...: We have a little creek in the back and we see a lot of box turtles. The city girl in me was all excited when I first saw them and grabbing the camera I terrorized the poor turtle (with the flash) that he peed (I felt very bad).; 6/12/12, 7:15 PM
Synova said...: That's got to be the cleanest snapping turtle shell I've ever seen.

Maybe it's a spring-time (early summer) shell, and the gunk froze off over winter.; 6/12/12, 7:23 PM
Anonymous said...: Waiter! I'll have the turtle soup and make it snappy.; 6/12/12, 7:37 PM
MadisonMan said...: That looks to be near where my bike self-destructed on Saturday.; 6/12/12, 7:42 PM
Amy said...: I found a baby snapping turtle in my garage a few weeks ago. Small enough to pick up, but I still wouldn't want my fingers near its mouth.

I took the turtle to a local pet shop, where someone will take it to the proper person(s) to take care of turtles.; 6/12/12, 7:48 PM
Coldstream said...: @jason(the commenter)

The dark meat on a snapper tastes sort of like pork, with muddy/fishy/gamey tones to it.

Not awful, but not something I'd go out of my way for.; 6/12/12, 8:01 PM
bagoh20 said...: As a kid we were always terrified of them. We did a lot of swimming in creeks and ponds, where we knew they were. There were many stories of lost toes - always seeming to have happened years before to people never named or known.

We swam in some of the filthiest polluted bodies of water you could ever imagine, and nobody thought anything wrong with it. We're talking sewage, hazardous waste, household appliances and refuse throughout. Many lacerations, punctures, stitches and Tetanus shots (wouldn't want to get the infamous lockjaw). All that filth mixing with my bloodstream. Ahhh, so bucolic.

I think that's why today even the cancer can't kill me. I'm immune to evil incarnate, and I have body parts that glow in the dark.; 6/12/12, 8:02 PM
bagoh20 said...: Does anyone know this turtles' blog address? I wanna see if he has video of Althouse running away.; 6/12/12, 8:05 PM
chickelit said...: The German word for toad is Kröte. They call a turtle a "shielded toad" or Schildkröte. A snapping turtle is a Schnappschildkröte. So logically, a snapping turtle drunk on schnapps is eine Schnappschildkröte betrunken auf Schnaps.; 6/12/12, 8:15 PM
rhhardin said...: Turtle on my bike path.; 6/12/12, 8:18 PM
Anonymous said...: Bagoh,
Glow in the dark body parts, huh? Might come in handy when hiking in the dark.; 6/12/12, 8:28 PM
Moose said...: Pet the kitty!!; 6/12/12, 8:30 PM
Michael said...: Allie. Ask your daughter to carry pepper spray and/or an Acme Thunderer whistle when she runs alone. A woman was knocked from her racing bike, raped and killed near Atlanta on a well traveled trail. The cops suggest that women not run alone. Fuck that. Women should run alone with pistols so that predators go elsewhere. The whistle in the ear is a powerful tool.; 6/12/12, 8:32 PM
Anonymous said...: Michael, thanks I will ask her to seriously consider it. She thinks Madison is very safe, ha nowhere is really safe.; 6/12/12, 8:37 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Meade was up ahead somewhere. He'd have come back to find me after a while.; 6/12/12, 8:49 PM
Anonymous said...: Good to know Ann. I bet you would've screamed if that turtle had snapped at you, would've had Meade racing back in a hurry.

No lie, W/V: rapeXP; 6/12/12, 8:55 PM
Carnifex said...: @Allie

Some cities don't like women, or anyone protecting themselves. If you live in said area, and can't even get mace, wasp spray (raid) in a high pressure can works just fine, and shoots a stream 20 feet or more. Nothing better than shootin' baddies at a distance.

@Althouse

That wasn't a real snappin' turtle. That was a poodle in a shell. I've seen snappers chase children across the yard. And AllieOop Snappers will take a mans head clean off(her choice of head). ;-)

And turtles taste just like chicken. Except for the parts that taste like lamb, beef, pork, etc...

The smallest snapper I ever saw(that sentence could get a man in trouble) was a new hatchling no bigger than a quarter. Little bastard still bit me. The biggest weighed 400 lbs, and was estimated at over 200 years old.(there were 2 of them).

I started to grab one once while scuba diving, and then he looked at me. I decided not.

Turtleman is crazier than a shithouse mouse! The country runs deep in that ol' boy.; 6/12/12, 9:06 PM
David said...: Meade would have looked at the turtle and said: "Stop snapping at her."; 6/12/12, 9:12 PM
Titus said...: God that is a horrible video.

Is that some sort of state park you were on subsidized by taxes?

Let's hope not because that would be immensely evil and communist.

Ride on bicycle tracks that are free enterprise or don't ride at all, bitch.

Who is paying for your bike trip is what I want to know?; 6/12/12, 10:24 PM
Meade said...: "Let's hope not because that would be immensely evil and communist."

So? Maybe we are immensely evil communists? Who are you to judge?; 6/12/12, 10:32 PM
traditionalguy said...: Titus...Think of the trail as the high speed train right of way that Walker abandoned. Does that make you feel any better.

Good Conservative comment though. Keep up your good work for the Grand Old Party, son.; 6/12/12, 10:35 PM
Beldar said...: But if you'd found it atop a fence post, Prof. Althouse, you'd have deduced that it didn't get there by itself.; 6/12/12, 11:05 PM
Curious George said...: Used to see them all the time on Odana Golf Course. One was stuck in a sand trap and like any good golfer used my sand wedge to flip him over the lip of the trap so he could go on his way. Also saw a few after they got mutilated by the mower. Blech.; 6/12/12, 11:06 PM
furious_a said...: Gawd, even when they're little they're ugly...and MEAN. My beagles cornered one -- about the size of a football -- out of the water near our daily walk trail. Circled and growled (just out of beaks reach) and the nasty critter never once pulled back in its shell.

Just pivoted, hissed and snapped. Even when I picked him up to pitch him back in the creek, dug at me with his claws. Not even a 'thank you' for the trouble.; 6/12/12, 11:41 PM
Titus said...: Well if it takes off the fat I am ok I guess. Even if as a taxpayer I am unfortunately paying for it.

Not really.

And Meade for chrissakes get a fucking job, please, other than posting on libtard websites.

You are 60 something. You should be enjoying your life and not being an old troll.; 6/13/12, 12:29 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: I've always considered the Chia pet turtle a terrible idea and my hope is that it would fail. It bugs me so much I must bring it up on a post about real turtles. You see, whereas the Chia pet ram is brilliant, the Chia pet turtle is anti-brilliant so it cancels out the original brilliance to dullness and that pisses me off because it is unnecessary. It's as if the whole thing is just kitsch or something.; 6/13/12, 1:57 AM
Rusty said...: Coldstream said...
@jason(the commenter)

The dark meat on a snapper tastes sort of like pork, with muddy/fishy/gamey tones to it.

Not awful, but not something I'd go out of my way for.

You keep them in a tub of running clear water for a week. Feed em fish parts. They are no longer muddy tasting.; 6/13/12, 7:10 AM
Rusty said...: AllieOop said...
Were you on that bike path all by yourself? I hate that my daughter goes jogging alone.

"No body ever raped a .38."
Mike Royko

She should at least jog with a friend or a dog.; 6/13/12, 7:13 AM
lemondog said...: re: Chia dullness, surely Chia O returns it to brilliance!!; 6/13/12, 7:17 AM
MadisonMan said...: Is that some sort of state park you were on subsidized by taxes?

County Park, not state.

And one is never alone on that path. It's very heavily used this time of year.; 6/13/12, 7:21 AM
Paul said...: Be glad Ann you didn't run into one of those Copper Headed Water Rattlers (Lewis Grizzard used to see them alot!); 6/13/12, 7:53 AM
Wally Kalbacken said...: Feets don' fail me now!; 6/13/12, 10:33 AM
Tsad said...: Nice little video! If you like turtles you'll enjoy this about the "uncommon" common snapping turtle!

http://tsadjatko.hubpages.com/hub/The-common-snapping-turtle-and-the-uncommon-snapping-turtle; 6/13/12, 2:41 PM