Chesapeake Almanac Podcast
Episode 4: April: Snapping Turtles up the River
Copyright © John Page Williams Jr. All rights reserved.
This is John Page Williams with a reading from "Chesapeake Almanac" for the month of April. This one is entitled "Snapping Turtles up The Rivers."
"There he is. Look at that ugly old thing," chuckled Bill Pike affectionately as he took a break from his perch fishing. A washtub-sized boil appeared on the water as a big snapping turtle surfaced and stared at us.
It was April, and we were anchored in Bill's skiff beside a fallen tree in one of the salt ponds on the Severn River above Annapolis. The tree was on a south-facing bank, so the sun by midday had warmed the water several degrees and brought a school of perch to forage on grass shrimp among the submerged limbs. It had also brought the turtle, not so much for the perch, which the big animal was too slow to catch, but for the warmth the critter received by basking at the surface. Bill had fished the tree several times in the previous few days. He and the turtle were well acquainted with one another.
The Chesapeake region is home to a broad variety of turtles. Many brackish and high-salinity marsh areas have healthy populations of diamondback terrapins. Several species of sea turtles venture into the open waters of the lower Bay. Painted turtles and a number of other freshwater species inhabit the upper reaches of the rivers.
The most widely distributed species, however, is the common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina serpentina). The snapper lives in an impressively large range of habitats, from farm ponds to shallow creeks to backwaters of tidal rivers, including areas like the Severn where salinities can reach up to half the concentration of seawater.
Archie Carr describes the snapper as big, aggressive, ubiquitous, and succulent in his excellent Handbook of Turtles. The animals are quite large, commonly reaching weights of 20 to 30 pounds. Growth is slow, and age is difficult to determine in the wild, but snapping turtles appear to be able to live at least 15 years.
Snappers are known to be active occasionally even in cold water. They've been observed crawling under ice in winter, but normally they bury themselves in mud then to hibernate. Their body metabolism slows way down, and they are able to live for long periods on small quantities of oxygen. Bill Pike's turtle had probably just emerged from the mud and was basking in the sun to raise its body temperature. It spent most of an hour near us, suspended just below the surface with only its eyes and nostrils out of the water.
The snapping turtle's name describes both its disposition and its standard method of feeding. Young snappers are agile enough to chase and capture moving quarry like crayfish, but large snappers are more likely to lie in wait and strike at prey with their long necks and sharp beaks. Although slow of body, they are remarkably quick and ambush. The tactic allows them to catch fish, frogs, snakes, small birds, and mammals that come within reach. They tend to be most active at night.
In fact, snapping turtles are yet more versatile. An animal that lives in such a broad range of environments must be able to handle a very broad diet. This turtle is a true omnivore, feeding also on brackish water clams, crabs, worms, and tender parts of marsh plants. It even scavenges dead fish.
In the water, snapping turtles are not always as aggressive as might be expected, even around humans. When we Chesapeake Bay Foundation field instructors were first experimenting with fyke nets in the education program, I raised a net to the surface by hand on Occupacia Creek on the Rappahannock. As the net cleared the water, I saw that my fingers were four inches from the head of a 15-pound turtle, which just stared at me without making a move. The incident was a good lesson in turtle behavior, but rest assured, we found other ways to retrieve our fykes since then.
On land, a snapping turtle is on the defensive and should be treated with great caution. Remember that it cannot run fast, but it can strike quickly, and its neck can extend a surprising distance. Do not handle one if you can help it. If you must, the rough tail is a safe handhold for dragging the turtle, but it is not good for lifting, as the animal's weight can cause severe injury to its vertebrae. If possible, lift by the hind legs. Hold the turtle well away from your legs with the belly toward you. (This suggestion comes from Turtles of the United States by Carl H. Ernst and Roger W. Barbor.)
Snapping turtles breed from April to November. There seems to be a peak of activity in late May and June. The female will hunt for a sandy spot, often some distance from the water, dig a hole, deposit her eggs, cover the hole, and leave. It's not unusual to find one making a nest on a sandy road at the edge of a marsh. Eggs hatch in two or three months if they're undisturbed by skunks, raccoons, black snakes, and other predators. Some eggs laid in the fall will not hatch till the following spring.
Snappers are not as highly regarded for food on the Bay as the diamondback, but, as Carr notes, they are succulent. There is a limited but steady market to make snapper soup, especially in central Pennsylvania. Most of the turtles are caught in wire traps baited with dead fish. An old practice of catching them with baited hooks on line set from poles is now outlawed in tidal waters of the Bay system, though it is legal in nontidal ponds in some areas.
The only danger of harvesting them is that, since they grow slowly, it's difficult for a population to recover from heavy fishing pressure. For this reason, full-time turtle trappers are constantly on the move from place to place. At present, demand seems to be modest enough that the Chesapeake's snappers are not in any danger of extinction.
Snapping turtles appear to labor under a number of handicaps. They are slow-moving and slow-growing.They have big bodies to feed. But they represent a highly successful design. Adaptability appears to be their great strength. At first glance, they're ugly and mean, but on second look they become much more interesting. No one could call them beautiful, but they are not hard to appreciate. Bill Pike speaks to his turtle with genuine affection.
For more happenings around the Bay in April see our other Chesapeake Almanac podcasts and read our blog posts "Homebound Birding" and "Springtime Silver in the Rivers in April."
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