Raccoon vs snapping turtle

[uncledj]

Weird.

I have a pond in the back of the house, maybe 50' x 100'. We threw a couple dozen goldfish from Walmart in the pond a few years ago, and now there's hundreds of them. We keep it aerated, and it's a pretty healthy pond that attracts ducks, geese, muskrat, and there's as many as 5 snapping turtles at a time.

I stepped out of the house, heading off to work and heard a ruckus down at the pond. Sounded like cats fighting, but it didn't really sound like cats, so I take a few steps to view the pond, and there's maybe a half dozen raccoons swimming in the pond with one struggling to stay above water, and I'm guessing that's the one that was screaming. I'm trying to make sense of what's going on, but my first reaction was to grab a hard rake that was nearby and run down to the pond to pull this young adult coon out before he drowned, figuring I'd have to jump into the pond to grab him / her. The pond's only a couple of feet deep on that end. By the time I grabbed the rake and turned around it got quiet, and I saw the coons swimming away from the spot where the one was crying. I saw some mud kicked up from the bottom, (water was muddy in that spot). I wasn't sure if the coon that was in trouble was one of the ones swimming away or not, and since the ruckus was over I watched for a minute then gave up on it and went to work.

Came home from work this evening, and went to throw some fish food in for the fish, (The snappers usually come up for the food as well)...and I noticed what looked like a half a rat or something floating in the pond. I walked around dispersing the food, noticing one of the snappers over where I saw the mysterious floating carion, anyhoo, I walked around the pond and when I got back to where I started the carion was gone.

Makes me wonder.....did that coon I saw get taken down by the snapper??? ......and if so, why didn't the coon come floating back up....???

I did a quick google search and saw no mention of a snapper taking a coon, but I don't know what else to make of it.

Like I said....Weird.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty interesting, so I thought I'd post it.

Thoughts???

[slowrollwv]

They will take down a small animal if the turtle is big enough. You should see the commotion when one gets a duck.

[cowpuc]

Was bass fishing a small pond a number of years ago, hit something hard with the paddle for my canoe - looked down just in time to see the claws and foot of huge snapper - not kidding, the foot was the size of my hand!! I have NO DOUBT that your ponds "dinosaur" is taking the bait!!

On another note, we also used to have a pretty good sized pond that I had dug to use for fill dirt. We ended up finishing it, shallow end with beach sand for the kids, deep

end was 15 feet.. I too planted fish.. Few years go by, I am standing in my bedroom shaving while gazing over the landscape when a Blue Huron came right over our house and landed in the pond. I yelled at Tip and said "a teradactel just landed in the pond!!!" After those monsters showed up I couldnt keep fish...

I LOVE POND LIFE - WAY COOL UNC!!!!

[SilvrT]

... and then there's those "pond monsters" reported every year at Freebird's maintenance day.... (or was it somewhere else?) ...

 

[cowpuc]

... and then there's those "pond monsters" reported every year at Freebird's maintenance day.... (or was it somewhere else?) ...

 

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I snagged into one of those once (cant tell for sure - pics blurry) and immediately cut the line and let it go.. It was nassstty!! Funny thing though,,, I also left the lake and when I was loading my row boat up on the trailer I noticed some mens clothing laying on shore.. I tried em on and they fit so I loaded em up with boat and went home. Tip was shocked when I told her the story, she thought I stopped at Goodwill or something on my way home.. Another note, it was in that stack of clothes that I found a Harley hat that have worn for years - my favorite hat and still is!!!

[ragtop69gs]

We were boating one year and saw a duck in distress, motored over there to find a snapper had a hold on it's leg, trying to pull it down! I grabbed my emergency paddle and beat the turtle off . All the other ducks were going nuts watching their friend being turned into lunch.

[Flyinfool]

Snapper has to eat too.

[Vonwolf]

We had Swan's in our pond when I was a kid and every now and then one would turn up with their neck's bitten half off thanks to those snapping turtles. My dad was wild for Tuttle soup and could spot those things while driving like he had radar, I can't count the time we'd be driving home from church or something and out the door he flew, 20 minutes later he'd be dragging some huge creature back to the car. Soon all the neighborhood kids got a Tuttle anatomy lesson as he butchered the critter and everybody but me got Turtle soup, no way was I going to eat that! My dad was one of a kind