By Staff
Last spring we had a snapping turtle invasion at our place on the Dowagiac Creek. The first one was spotted mid morning as she plodded across the lawn toward the creek. Backtracking her in the dewy grass I found where she had dug a nest in the bare dirt over the septic tank. Pretty cool, I thought. However, by the next morning something had dug up and eaten all the eggs, most likely a raccoon. Now, I'm not a turtle geek like my wife and her sister, they'll slide to a screeching stop in the middle of I-94 to assist a turtle cross the road, but I felt kind of bad about that. I knew that now-a-days snapping turtle nesting success is near zero.
The following morning I noticed a strange, large lump in the side yard. It was another snapper in the act of laying her eggs. I watched for a while but she didn't seem to be making any progress. I soon got bored and went about my business. She worked at it several more hours before finishing her business and leaving when I wasn't looking. I fashioned a hardware cloth coon guard over this nest.
Amazingly, the next morning the wife spotted yet another snapper laying eggs in the field next to our driveway. I knew the field would be plowed any day so I decided to transplant the eggs to a more secure location. I'd heard the Croc Hunter, Steve Irwin, say crocodile eggs must remain oriented the same side up when being moved so I figured the same probably applied to turtles. I put a dot on the top of each egg with a felt tip pen and carefully transferred all 18 into the dirt in the bucket without turning them. The first nest that the coon dug up seemed like the logical place to put them. I dug the dirt out to about the same depth as the nest I just dug up, carefully placed each egg in spot side up, and covered them over with dirt and a hardware cloth coon guard.
I checked out incubation time and found that in this area it could be anywhere from 90 to 120 days. That would put the big day, or night I should say, somewhere between Aug. 20 and Sept. 20. I was being a little selfish and didn't leave an escape route out of the screen coon guards because I wanted to see the fruits of my labors. Aug. 20 came and went with no action, as did the next several weeks. Then in mid-September we made a spur of the moment decision to head to Alaska. Curiosity was killing us so we decided to check the transplanted nest before we left. I also could not imagine that the little guys could dig up through the now hard packed heavy clay soil. If the eggs were good, loosening up the dirt should be a help. As it turned out, none of the eggs had developed. I must have done something wrong. Or was it the summer drought? We decided to check the naturally laid eggs, too. We dug carefully with a trowel and soon uncovered a tiny little snapper with the egg sac still sprouting out underneath. We covered the nest back over without looking further. I'd read the baby snappers remain underground for a week or more after hatching until the egg sac is used up at which point they emerge.Since we'd be gone I fashioned an escape tunnel out of the coon guard.
When we returned the nest looked pretty much the same. It didn't appear that anything had happened. Had we killed them by loosening the soil? We waited a couple more weeks then dug into the nest expecting to find a bunch of dead baby turtles. Instead, all we found was empty shells. While we were gone the little buggers had made their escape leaving nary a sign. Though the transplant was a failure the coon guard gave 13 little snappers a chance at life. Carpe diem