Tasty Turtle Tales
Monday, March 10, 2025
Tasty Turtle Tales
Camping in North Ontario, we believed we were returned to nature and adopted the studied posture of hunter gatherers. We could see turtles occasionally while fishing, and their stare made me uncomfortable. Turtles have their own cultural significance in China, one I’ve ignored as I have a troubled relationship with turtles ever since we—my brother, our old man, Grandpa, and me—cut the head off an old snapping turtle when I was about 9 years old.
We netted Mr. Turtle when he was trying to snatch some bass off our stringer tied to the dock; he was old; mossy backed, big, stinking. Now what? Gramps advised that “you cut the head off”. We quickly determined that's a tricky exercise when performed on something that can pull its head back inside a big, mossy protective shell. We enticed him (how do I know it’s a him?) to stick his head out with several taunts, and somehow or another, Gramps fashioned a garrote out of some wire, and he got it around the neck. I was on tail duty, my brother was holding the wired on the head and we began our tug of war.
I remember being dragged by the turtle in it’s attempts at escape until I could dig my Keds into the dirt and brace against a rock. Parts got exposed, and a (dull) axe edge was placed on the neck. The plan was to put the axe on the neck, then hit the axe with a large sledge hammer. Someone (history is unclear about who) figured that swinging an axe around a turtle and a couple kids playing tug of war with the victim was dangerous.
In retrospect, the safety cow was already out of the barn and frozen in the headlights of an oncoming semi. We pulled, straining as much as a 9 and 12 year old can pull, and my old man starting whaling away w/the maul while Gramps held the axe, or tried to. No one remembers how many tries it took, but it seemed to go on for an eternity. I didn't notice the bits of turtle shell, blood, and connective tissue flying around and sticking itself to everyone and everything. At the time, it was all I could do to hold onto the (increasingly slippery and disgusting) tail.
We eventually got the head off, trailing a good amount of gastro-intestinal remains. My Dad held the thing up and we all stared. It’s eyes followed our movements. This may have been my first visceral experience with life after death, a graphic and telling example of the life force continuing well after one’s physical shell has been dismantled. Gramps took a stick about the size of my thumb & started poking. The thing bit & snapped the stick in half. We did it again. It would follow the stick around w/it's eyes, and when it was close enough, it would bite and snap it in half. We got it to snap several sticks, then you could see the glow of life drifting out if the eyes…..and it was lights out and into the void of turtle eternity.
Somewhere in the background, my Mom was recording all this on the Bell & Howell 8mm. The film burnt up and melted about the time the 37th axe blow was falling, so the body-absent turtle head stick snapping part has to live on through the telling. We took the shell, and bits of meat from the legs, and made turtle soup. After a few hours with proud bellies full of turtle, we all puked, and even though my memory on all this is shaded with time, I recall a veritable family puke fest of projectile vomiting going on for several hours.
Since our camp lacked modern facilities (basically a two hole outhouse), we dispersed into the weeds, curled up and miserable, to experience our own private hell of turtle retribution. Culinary advice for anyone contemplating turtle as an option; don’t do it. Anything that scavenges rotten meat off the bottom of lakes and lives several decades in the process can’t be good for you. Can’t.
Now, what to do with the massive shell, this historical record of primeval impulse and (sort of) success at gathering our own food from the wild? Again, acting on further sage advice from Grandpa (didn’t we learn the 1st time!?!), we took the shell, set it on a big anthill we’d scouted out and reserved for such events, and we waited several days for the ants to clean out the extraneous meat. Supposedly, thousands of generations of human activity had done similar things in order to display the success of their hunt via talisman on their huts. I dreamed of having my own turtle shell hanging on my BR door, my own heart of darkness wherein my rule was unquestioned and I ruled over a turtle worshiping horde that held me as their unquestioned God.
It was not to be. Rolling down the expressway on the return from vacation w/the shell wrapped in newspaper in the trunk, we started smelling the smell somewhere around Toronto. We opened the trunk to find it full of maggots & stinking like something worse than a pig wallow in the hot summer sun. The shell got left at random rest stop somewhere north of Toronto, and as we slowly pulled away and entered the merge lane, I looked back and could see fellow travelers reeling in confused terror and pull their hands to their nose as they walked by the trash can cum turtle mausoleum. The subsequent cleaning out of the car trunk looked something like the Henry Hill scene in “Goodfellas”, where Henry (Ray Liotta) hoses out the God awful stink onto the driveway. It took several hard rains before the driveway turtle stink went away.
So, turtle? It’s for someone else, as I am left only with dark memories and foiled ambitions.
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Good morning. Eeeeew.
Today's special animal friend, from a safe distance, is the alligator snapping turtle, Macrochelys temminckii. The largest freshwater turtle species in North America, it is not closely related to the common snapping turtle, Chelydra serpentina, which is the largest freshwater turtle in North Carolina. The alligator snapping turtle is found in wetlands from Florida to east Texas and up into Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and other lower-tier Midwestern states.
Like some other reptiles, alligator snapping turtles continue growing throughout their lifespan. Really large ones are realistically reported to weigh over 250 lbs., and individuals around 175 lbs. are found pretty often. These very heavy old males have a carapace length over 30 inches, which doesn't seem all that big, but then you add on the powerful, crocodilian legs and the CLAWS, and it's obvious they could eat you. Although no human deaths are reliably attributed to the alligator snapping turtle, you may contemplate your theoretical edibility with this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-aILnSkMXU
A typical, adult specimen that you would pull up out of a Missouri farm pond on a fishing line weighs about 30 lbs. My grandfather would shoot them in the head and throw them back in for their relatives to eat. Alligator snapping turtles are generalist carnivores. Their typical diet includes fish (living and dead), other turtles (living and dead), water birds, eggs, and freshwater mollusks; mammals that swim or go near the shore or die can also be eaten.
Reproduction takes place annually in the spring. Courtship involves facing one another and moving heads from side to side, perhaps in a bar. If agreement is reached, the female receives sperm in her cloaca. She may store the sperm for up to two years if environmental conditions are not conducive to nesting. Normally, she builds a nest on the shore and lays 10 to 50 eggs about two months after mating. The eggs incubate for 100 to 140 days. Higher temperatures produce male offspring and lower temperatures female ones; "temperature dependent sex determination" is found in all turtle species. The eggs hatch in early fall.
The eggs and hatchlings are vulnerable to bird and mammal predators, and large fish or other reptiles can eat hatchlings in the water. They reach reproductive maturity in about 12 years, and their lifespan is estimated at 80 to 120 years, although 200 has been hypothesized. That would be the unverified 400 lb. specimen. Don't think about it too much.
Adult alligator snapping turtles have no natural predators. Humans are a threat, but not all that much of one. The species is considered vulnerable due to habitat loss and overcollection for the pet trade. (Here's your sign ...). They are protected in several states and banned in others, such as California. An invasive population is established in South Africa. Released individuals have been spotted in Central European countries such as the Czech Republic and Hungary; it is not clear whether breeding populations have taken hold in the wild. The E.U. is trying hard to keep them out!