Apparently this is the correct way to pick up a snapping turtle without injuring it (not the case for every turtle)
No it’s not. If you hold them entirely by the top of their shell, you are putting immense pressure on their spine and joints. He’s holding it okay here because he’s supporting the weight of the turtle with his knee to prevent it, but there’s no reason not to hold it by the sides of his shell towards the back. You have to be careful of the claws, yes, but I’ve held about 100+ snapping turtles (commons and alligators) that way and they cannot reach you with their mouth.
I’ve seen them place their heads entirely upside down on the front of their carapace. Your hand helps prevent that but it’s also not totally safe there from a turtle that really tries.
Also if you ever lift a snapping turtle by its tail, you dislocate its tail spine from its shell and that has and can kill them. I’ve found dead or dying turtles with the spine dislocation because someone lifted a 50lb animal by its tail and thought that would be fine. Please don’t do that ever.
Seriously, it’s not that complicated I promise. Just hold the turtle towards the back in the middle of the shell, but give it proper support, or don’t hold it at all. https://thevlm.org/wp-content/uploads/Snap-x2-6.jpg
Our team down in Mexico got up close
and personal with perhaps the most unique of the box turtles, the
Coahulian box turtle (Terrapene coahuila).
This endangered species is
also called the aquatic box turtle, because unlike all other members of
the genus Terrapene, they spend 90% of their life in the water!
Wow! What an incredible photo and as always, great work by @turtleconservancy
I never wondered what they looked like before. Wow. I literally just gasped. How neat!
Which is another reason you shouldn’t pick them up by their top shell
Everyone knows that you shouldn’t pick up a tortoise or turtle by their shell since their backbone is fused with it, but often it’s not really an easy thing to visualize how that works. Here’s a really cool image for that…
Almost NOBODY knows this, because people don’t bother to simply show you a fucking image like this in school so before i saw this on tumblr i thought a turtle was simply a loose animal in a shell like a snail
Endangered
Species Series: Harvested for their meat and traded as exotic pets,
Northern River Terrapins are a species on the brink of extinction
by Shailendra Singh
A brackish water species, the Northern River Terrapin (Batagur baska) is one of the largest turtles to be found in Southeast Asia.
It is one of the world’s most endangered turtles – classified as
Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List.
Up until the 1960s, they
were very common – in fact, they were possibly one of the most common
turtle species, according to the literature available from the British
era in the Zoological Survey of India. Earlier, B baska used to
be found in the river mouths of Odisha and the Sunderbans. Today, it is
considered extinct in much of its former range. Fewer than 50 adults
remain, in four captive locations around the world…
There’s a whole group of turtles that fold their necks into their shells sideways rather than pulling them straight back (called sidenecks). Several of them have very long necks that they can fold back into their shell and then shoot out to grab passing prey. Snakeneck turtles have truly impressive neck reaches.
“Don’t mind me, Mr. Fish, I just have a short little neck I definitely couldn’t reach all the way over…”
“JUST KIDDING YES I CAN”
They have such cute creepy little faces. If they didn’t all get so big I would love to have one (puts another turtle on my Someday list).
The other trouble is that snakenecks can sometimes be a bit nippy and since their necks are long enough to reach all the way to the back of their shell NOWHERE IS SAFE.
Conservationists say the case involving 70 spotted turtles and 100
eastern box turtles confiscated on May 9 is a troubling example of how
China’s appetite for turtles has grown to include relatively common
native species in the United States.
“This case signals a new and
distressing trend: poachers in the U.S. willing to swap our own wildlife
for a few dollars from Chinese collectors,” Paul Gibbons, chief
operating officer of the nonprofit Turtle Conservancy’s Behler Chelonian
Center in Ventura County, said…
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 