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It was about this time of year, perhaps a little later. I was on one of my trips to Flushing Meadow Park, not the lake with the Paddle Boats, the other one. (one's called "Willow" lake, the other "Meadow" lake - I can never get them sorted out) I used to go out looking for stuff to look at under my microscope, scraping junk off the bottom of rocks, etc. Well, I turned over this big rock...but it wasn't a rock.
It was the largest Snapping Turtle I've ever seen in my life. At least three feet long. I was lucky it was cold and the thing was still hibernating. Snappers that size are dangerous, they could take your hand off.
That summer, I found a baby of the same species, which I kept as a "guest" in my home fish tank for a while (until it had eaten all my Black Mollies) before letting it go. That shows that there must have been at least a pair out there.
What kind of p____ed me off is that the NY Parks Department has seen fit to close that part of the park off to people, declaring it to be "Forever Wild." C'mon, that place used to be a garbage dump, it's all fill. There used to be a bunch of ballfields for the kids to go to out there and play. Now they're SOL, I guess.
Occurred in Allegany County, between Birdsall and Angelica.
My friend and I were fishing the bass stream there when I decided I wanted out of the canoe to make a few casts into a nearby little pond. There was a muddy beaver trail between the pond and the bass stream. It was getting near dusk and I was in a bit of a greedy hurry, so I didn't really look at my footing as I scampered up the trail.
CLOMP.
Something had my foot.
It was a HUGE snapping turtle. She had just laid a couple of eggs, apparently--they were right behind her in a shallow nest, right on the trail--and she was protecting them from this bumbling bi-ped. Luckily I was wearing borrowed boots that were way too big for me, so the turtle had clamped on an empty couple of inches of rubber toe. But clamped she was. She wouldn't let go, and I was afraid to force the issue. So there we stood--me with my foot in the turtle's mouth, and the turtle protecting her eggs. I called back to my friend in the canoe, but he had already paddled off. Idiot that I was, I made a few casts into the pond--and hooked a nice big bass. Who then proceeded to tangle my line around a submerged log. Finally, after about an hour, or so it seemed, the turtle let go, hissing. I jumped back, angled around to unhook my line, stumbling the in dark now, and found the bass still on it. I felt like I owed nature one, so I let the bass go.
My friend and his dad never believed my story. Even though the boot-top was pierced by the turtle tooth (teeth?).
My friend had also never came back to pick me up in the canoe--his idea of a joke.
Moral of the story: Watch where you're going, and borrow footwear freely.
That night my friend found a fish head in his sleeping bag. My idea of revenge.
I'm happy to say that the stream, pond, and I assume the turtle's descendents are all very much unmolested there to this day.
Based on your fond reminiscences of the turtle, even if it became too big for your tank, you obviously and admirably enjoy wildlife--especially in such a marginal, hard-pressed place for wildlife such as Flushing Meadow in Queens, NYC. But there is an irony to your complaint about the Parks Dept. declaring a section of the Meadows "forever wild." You need to realize that the City Parks Dept. has closed off this area expressly to provide a safe living and breeding habitat for wildlife, such as the snapping turtles, for you and others to enjoy instead of you having to take your kids or your fellow neighbors' kids or grandkids to a museum in order to show them what a turtle is when they ask what one used to look like, because there are no turtles to be found in the City of New York. An exaggeration you might say? Not at all. Think about it. Let's just take Flushing Meadow, as an example. How much room do you think wild animals have in such a small park? It is surrounded on all sides by heavy, dense urban development. This prevents the animals from non-chalantly moving away from human disturbance should the disturbance affect their ability to eat, hide and breed, unlike if they lived in the wide, open spaces of a rural area. Any wild creature, with the notable exceptions of rats and pigeons, is going to have a hard time of it simply surviving in the urban scene. Let us, instead of bemoaning the lost of a couple of ball fields, which are readily found throughout all of NYC, especially in Queens, praise those humans who care enough to think about about a turtle--or rabbit--or songbirds, etc. struggling to survive in a hostile, artificial envrionment.
This would be a nice legacy to leave your kids, and their kids, and their kids.
I've never seen a snapping turtle, only the big box-turtles that are fairly common here on LI. Sounds like I'd come off second-best in a fight with a snapping turtle, LOL!
There actually is a "Turtle Rescue" organization here on LI. My sister contacted them once when her husband who was doing lawn maintenance at the time, brought home a pair of box turtles from a customer's property and made a pen for them in the yard. It wasn't long before there were many turtles and she had the sense to realize that simply releasing them into a typical surburban development neighborhood would be a death sentence. Someone told her about Turtle Rescue of LI .... a good organization.
I've never seen a snapping turtle, only the big box-turtles that are fairly common here on LI. Sounds like I'd come off second-best in a fight with a snapping turtle, LOL!
There actually is a "Turtle Rescue" organization here on LI. My sister contacted them once when her husband who was doing lawn maintenance at the time, brought home a pair of box turtles from a customer's property and made a pen for them in the yard. It wasn't long before there were many turtles and she had the sense to realize that simply releasing them into a typical surburban development neighborhood would be a death sentence. Someone told her about Turtle Rescue of LI .... a good organization.
I'll bet that snapper is still there, a literal stones throw from the Grand Central Parkway.. They come up underneath ducks in the water, grab em by the leg, and...BLOOP! Todays mallard is tomorrows lunch.
I had an Eastern Box Turtle as a "guest" for a few days, when I was a student at Stony Brook. By that I mean, I kept it for a few days, removed his or her (not sure how one sexes a turtle - not sure I want to) parasites, fed it a lot, then let it go. Handsome creature.
I had an Eastern Box Turtle as a "guest" for a few days, when I was a student at Stony Brook.
Coincidentally, that's where my sister and family live, and the general area where her husband was doing the lawn maintenance work. Apparantly the North Shore is good Box Turtle country.
I attended Stony Brook myself, during the early-mid 1980s, as an "adult student". The kind the kids hate because we ruin the curve. I'd taken a sabbatical from a high-stress job and decided to indulge myself in some courses in History and Earth/Space Science. If by chance you were there at about the same time, we might have had some of the same professors. The prof for Geology and several other natural sciences was Ken Ettlinger -- does the name ring a bell? I also took an ornithology class there but have gone totally blank on the name of the professor.... although I do remember that my end-of-course paper was on the Behavioral Characteristics of Orange-Cheeked Waxbills!
Coincidentally, that's where my sister and family live, and the general area where her husband was doing the lawn maintenance work. Apparantly the North Shore is good Box Turtle country.
I attended Stony Brook myself, during the early-mid 1980s, as an "adult student". The kind the kids hate because we ruin the curve. I'd taken a sabbatical from a high-stress job and decided to indulge myself in some courses in History and Earth/Space Science. If by chance you were there at about the same time, we might have had some of the same professors. The prof for Geology and several other natural sciences was Ken Ettlinger -- does the name ring a bell? I also took an ornithology class there but have gone totally blank on the name of the professor.... although I do remember that my end-of-course paper was on the Behavioral Characteristics of Orange-Cheeked Waxbills!
We might have at that. But, biology and me had parted company by that time; I'd switched to chemistry. The last biology course I took there was in 1980...I think. It was called Life in Water. The professor was a man named Hechtel. He also taught the course in Invertebrate Zoology. He is, or was, a world renowned authority on sponges. He was also the hardest grader I ever had, at that school or any other. But his course was fascinating. I got to dissect a lamprey eel.
Based on your fond reminiscences of the turtle, even if it became too big for your tank, you obviously and admirably enjoy wildlife--especially in such a marginal, hard-pressed place for wildlife such as Flushing Meadow in Queens, NYC. But there is an irony to your complaint about the Parks Dept. declaring a section of the Meadows "forever wild." You need to realize that the City Parks Dept. has closed off this area expressly to provide a safe living and breeding habitat for wildlife, such as the snapping turtles, for you and others to enjoy instead of you having to take your kids or your fellow neighbors' kids or grandkids to a museum in order to show them what a turtle is when they ask what one used to look like, because there are no turtles to be found in the City of New York. An exaggeration you might say? Not at all. Think about it. Let's just take Flushing Meadow, as an example. How much room do you think wild animals have in such a small park? It is surrounded on all sides by heavy, dense urban development. This prevents the animals from non-chalantly moving away from human disturbance should the disturbance affect their ability to eat, hide and breed, unlike if they lived in the wide, open spaces of a rural area. Any wild creature, with the notable exceptions of rats and pigeons, is going to have a hard time of it simply surviving in the urban scene. Let us, instead of bemoaning the lost of a couple of ball fields, which are readily found throughout all of NYC, especially in Queens, praise those humans who care enough to think about about a turtle--or rabbit--or songbirds, etc. struggling to survive in a hostile, artificial envrionment.
This would be a nice legacy to leave your kids, and their kids, and their kids.
Perhaps it would be different, now. But when I went there, it was nearly deserted, except for those ball fields. I do not have kids, and I'm not now nor ever was a sports guy. But, my understanding is that it's hard for the kids to find a place to play ball, that there are waiting lists for those fields that exist.
Nature is more resilient than many people suppose. I've seen lots of animals in really urban environments. I don't like to be arguing what seems to be an "anti-Nature" point of view. It just seems to me that there's room for both. Part of what made me appreciate Nature the way that I do is being able to experience it there, because I could ride my bike there.
I will forever remember Organic Chem as the course that killed my 4.0 GPA. I have definitely blocked out the professor's name but I am sure it wasn't Hechtel... it was a youngish guy.
I do recall my history prof's names though: Dr. Stuart Semel and Dr. Karl Bottigheimer were both in British History. I'm sitting here trying to remember the name of the German or Swiss professor who taught the courses in the history of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. Fairly tall, very slim, probably in his 60s at the time, and with pure white hair.
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I have definitely blocked out the professor's name but I am sure it wasn't Hechtel... it was a youngish guy.
