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How do you kill a turtle?
On 14 Nov 2003 22:20:18 -0800, (Elena
Nakashima) wrote:
>Dave Smith > wrote in message >...
>> Elena Nakashima wrote:
>>
>> > I personally like turtles too much to kill them. They are beautiful
>> > animals
>>
>> My guess would be that you have never seen a big snapping turtle. Beautiful is the last word that
>> I would describe their appearance, or their personality. They are nasty creatures. The only one I
>> ever killed was the huge one that lived in our swimming hole.
>
>I have. I used to have a small one as a pet. Most turtles are
>beautiful but not the snapping turtle. Still, it's a wonder of nature,
>fearsome looking, 'proud', nature's Sherman tank, an armoured warrior.
>Magnificent in its beastliness.
Magnificent it is. One reason it is so aggressive, I think, is that it
really isn't protected all that much. Its fleshy parts are so big
outside that it can't really retract them.
They float in ponds with just the little pointy tip of the nose
showing. You can't tell how big they are.
When I was about 12 (in the 1940s) I borrowed a net on a long pole and
reached under a nose. What I got was a modest size, about 15 inch
carapace, but a demon to hold onto.
You have to hold them far enough aft so they can't bite your hand, and
they have very long necks. But, if you hold them that far back, the
hind legs can keep clawing at your hands. I don't thik I could have
held one much bigger (they do get much bigger.)
I got it into a saddlebag on my bicycle and took it home. I tried to
build a pen for it by the kitchen stoop out of rocks. My uncle got a
leech off its shell with carbon tetrachloride.
WIthin a day it got loose, and scared the daylights out of the lady
next door, who came on it in her garden. I took it back to the pond it
came from.
Rodney Myrvaagnes NYC J36 Gjo/a
"Wanting to meet a writer because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pate."
Margaret Atwood
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