MORNING CALL (Allentown, Pennsylvania) 01 November 05 A harvest of snapping turtles (Christian Berg)
This is the story of Dr. George J. Motsay, who planted a garden and harvested more than 20 baby snapping turtles.
Motsay of Upper Macungie Township said the story began in January, when he learned that some land near his hometown of Carbondale, Lackawanna County, would be available for planting in the spring.
After receiving permission from landowner Frank Ference, Motsay decided to grow potatoes and squash and donate them to a local food bank and senior citizens center.
Motsay planted his crops in June. One day in July, while cultivating his potato patch, he inadvertently uncovered a turtle nest. He immediately suspected that it belonged to a rather large snapping turtle that lived in a small pond about 50 yards away.
Not wanting to harm the eggs, Motsay carefully re-covered them with dirt and marked the nest area with plastic pails and sticks.
''Throughout the very warm and very dry summer, there was no sign of activity at the nest, which I watched like a hawk,'' Motsay wrote. ''The eggs did not hatch.''
So concerned was Motsay that he consulted reptile books, which told him that snapping turtle eggs sometimes remain in the nest overwinter and hatch the following spring. Motsay, however, was reluctant to leave the eggs in the ground out of fear they would freeze. So, on Sept. 14, Motsay decided to retrieve them.
''I carefully removed the hard and caked earth from the nest,'' he wrote. ''While doing so, I doubted newly-hatched…turtles would have been able to dig through the packed dirt. The first eggs appeared after I dug about five to six inches. They were white, spherical, leathery and about one-half the size of a golf ball.
''My plan was to take the eggs home in a plastic pail with dirt and place them in the basement, but as I began putting them in the pail, baby snapping turtles the size of a started to hatch before my eyes. There were a few shriveled, non-viable eggs, but 20 some were good, and all but five or six hatched immediately — and the rest within 48 hours.''
Motsay said the baby turtles had a portion of the yolk sack still attached to their plastrons (undershells), adding that this supplemental food source was absorbed within several days. When he poured water into the pail, about half of the newborn snappers immediately buried themselves in the mud.
''A few days after digging them out of their nest,'' Motsay wrote, ''I placed each turtle on a flat rock beside the pond and watched each one swim away.
''The potato harvest was great and the food bank was grateful, but the harvest of snapping turtles was a special treat.''
Motsay's rare encounter with the baby snapping turtles certainly brings a warm and cuddly perspective to a species most commonly known for its surly disposition and tasty flesh, which is coveted by lovers of snapper soup.
Adult snapping turtles have a menacing look, which includes a large, warty head, heavy neck, dark, serrated carapace, small plastron, saw-toothed tail and exposed legs.
Males are larger than females, and according to the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians, snapping turtles may grow as large as 45 pounds in the wild and 75 pounds in captivity. One unverified record of an 86-pound snapper exists in scientific annals.
Snapping turtles have a temper to match their appearance, and their powerful jaws can cause serious damage to whatever, or whoever, gets in the way. Similar to an aggressive snake, a snapper, when confronted on land, will repetitively lunge at its foes.
The rear of the shell is elevated as it digs in with its hind legs, and the open-jawed strike is powerful enough to move it ahead a foot or so. It may strike repeatedly, until something is caught in its jaws or the curious opossum, raccoon or person annoying the turtle decides it's best to move on.
Despite their well-publicized mean streak, snapping turtles do not make a habit of attacking people and are content to spend much of their submerged along a muddy streambed or lake bottom.
Often, only the snout is exposed as a snapping turtle hides among reeds and lily pads, patiently awaiting the arrival of prey. Snappers feed on carrion, fish, aquatic plants, small mammals and birds. They are notorious for stealing ducklings from the water's surface, and many a field mouse has undoubtedly fallen prey to the snapper's powerful jaws while attempting to swim across a stream or swamp.
Snapping turtles may mate from April to November, although June is the peak egg-laying season. After breeding, females leave the relative safety of the water to search out an appropriate nest site, preferably some open area of loose, moist, loamy or sandy soil exposed to sunlight.
Mother snappers may wander a considerable distance from water before finding just the right spot in which they excavate a shallow pocket by using the rear legs as a rototiller of sorts.
According to Audubon, an average of 25-50 eggs are deposited in the nest, although some females may lay more than 80 eggs. After laying her eggs, a female snapper will cover them with soil before returning to the water. No further parental care is given.
Baby snappers emerge from their eggs in nine to 18 weeks, depending on the temperature, and must immediately fend for themselves and seek out water. As Motsay learned, nests made later in the summer may overwinter before hatching the following spring.
Sharp-nosed and ever-hungry predators may eat either the developing eggs or the soft-shelled youngsters. Such a find provides belly-filling meals for foxes, opossums, raccoons and other predators.
The turtles collected by Motsay were spared such a cruel fate thanks to a kind-hearted gardener who gently returned them to the pond where their parents almost certainly reside.
A harvest of snapping turtles

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