My first official rescue.

[Aric]

We have been talking to the president of the local humane society and he selected us to be in charge of any reptile that comes in. So yesterday we volunteered with the group for a fundraiser to help build a new shelter. We had only known the guy for a few hours and when we got home he called and said we need to come and get this turtle. It was behind a Walmart and looked like it hadnt been in any water for weeks, not moving much at all and certainly not acting like and snapper ive seen before. We got him home and put him in the pond and today hes acting much better. Its also a 14.5" turtle and underweight but still weights 25-35 pounds.

Heres some pics.

Last night when we got him here.

and today





and here I am handling him/her and trying not to get a finger taken off.

[MeMe]

That's very cool Aric!



He looks way better in todays pics!

and I love that close up of his head!

[Aric]

That's very cool Aric!



He looks way better in todays pics!

and I love that close up of his head!

Thanks, he is acting way better then he did yesterday, last night he could hardly move. The closeup is alot of zoom, not getting anywhere near that head, been trying to get me all day.

[frankykeno]

Hey he's a snapper....so snapping is a good sign I would think LOL. Great rescue there Aric. You know since he (or for that matter she) was found behind a WalMart you're pretty much stuck either with the name "Wally" or "Sam".

[Aric]

Hey he's a snapper....so snapping is a good sign I would think LOL. Great rescue there Aric. You know since he (or for that matter she) was found behind a WalMart you're pretty much stuck either with the name "Wally" or "Sam".

Thanks, I think ill call him/her wally. Just fits him/her perfectly. Im going to keep him/her for a few weeks and try to get its weight up a bit then find a place to relocate him. If the humane society had their building built then he would have gone there and kept for educational purposes.

[frankykeno]

I could be flat out wrong but I did grow up around a lot of snappers (swimming off our dock was EVER so much fun LOL). I seem to remember that the males have a concave belly and the females don't - so the males "fit" on top of the females shell for breeding. Wally's belly looks pretty concave so I'm guessing a boy.

Our whole family had to do a snapper rescue one summer. For some odd reason that the local wildlife folks never figured out, there was a mass exodus out of the lake. Unfortunately our lakeside home sat right smack dab in the middle of the snappers "highway". Boy was that fun trying to keep our beagle/terrior cross from attempting to harrass the turtles back into the lake...she was apparently totalling convinced they should be there and not stomping around "her" backyard! We had little snappers galore in kids wading pools and were racing around trying to keep the big adults from ending up on the road (our house was on the road right to a popular boat launch). The wildlife folks arrived, moved a bunch of them and never really gave us any idea why they did this all at once. My grandfather remained convinced something was up in the lake that would make the turtles act like this (it wasn't breeding season and we'd never seen that many come up on our property like that). A really freaky experience!

I hope you find Wally a wonderful forever home with lots of cute female snappers around.

[Aric]

I have yet to look at this ones belly but when I do, ill let you all know the news. Before we got the turtle we had to get permission from the local wildlife people so that we could actually take him home, they also said with the drought around here the turtles homes have been drying up and making them move elsewear to find water. Since we put this turtle in the pond, he hasn't come out.

[frankykeno]

I just went from the pic of you holding him. Looked pretty concave to me.