Maybe someone can help. I have snapper hooks baited in a pond and want to have a full skeletal mount of a snapping turtle. My question is how can I kill the thing? The problem is that I am in college and I have to hike to get to this pond and I have no car. I need to kill it at the pond, obviously I can't take a live snapper back to my dorm. What would the ladies think? Someone suggested injecting bleech into it. I do not want to damage the skull or any other bones. Hanging is obviously out of the question, they rarely stick their heads out long enough to get a noose on it. Please help, I don't care aout the most humane method, just an effective one that can be done at the capture site with few supplies. Thanks, and sorry for sounding like a sicko. Joe
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Why dont you leave it alone.
It's not bothering you!
Ask your lab professor about Nicotine sulphate or mecuric oxide or potassium compounds. Any of those in solution will produce quick death when injected into a vein or artery. Clorox will produce a slow death that is just not humane. If you just want the skeleton, ring the neck behind the head with a scapel, cutting to, but not through the bone, and allow it to bleed to death. Handle the turtle with rubber gloves and do not let the blood get on your skin.
Well now you have a big problem on your hands if i say o myself. If you can get your hands on the chemicals Bill spoke of you are better off because killing one is a real problem. I did about a 15 pounder a few years back that someone brought me live and wanted mounted. This was in late november and we had 6" of snow on the ground. As Bill suggested, i cut its throat to bleed it and buried it in the snow , thinking it will either freeze to death or bleed to death. The next day i found it 100 yartds away crawling. At this point I removed the bottom plastron and basically eviscerated all its internal organs and again buried it in the snow. The next day, I FOUND IT AGAIN, ttrailing all its organs and walking across the snow covered lawn. At this point I said the hell with it and just stuffed it in my freezer and after a week it was dead. They are a very very tough customer. !
Tom
Turtle blood coagulates or clots very quickly, perhaps due to aquaeous environment. They can plug holes about as quickly as you create them. Formaldehyde injection will also work, but the odor will be around for quite some time. There were some old wives tails about them not dying until the sun goes down, or something to that effect. A turtle's heart can beat long after it is removed from the body. I remember chasing little girls around with one when I was a kid. (I don't recommend that. When the pimples wear off and those little girls "blossom" they tend not to forget the fright, making it pretty tough to get a date.) That is just one lesson about the female memory. And they say an elephant never forgets?
Like Tom said, freezing will work, but you need to freeze it for some time, a week or more. Raising temperature will also bring about quick death in reptiles and amphibians. Much quicker than does freezing. Most reptiles perish when their core temperature rises above 102 F.
If you want to see a snake "freeze frame", drop one into a bucket of hot water from the tap at 160 to 180 degrees F. Dropping the snapper into a cooler filled with 160-180 degree water that could be heated on location and added to the cooler will kill cleanly and quickly. I killed snakes with hot tap water often in the past. Instant death and instant rigor mortis too for some reason. Hotter water will cause damage to the skin.
It is not that strange to take a snapping turtle back to your dorm! Heck when I was at Slippery Rock (Which is where you are if I remember) I did an Animal Physiology project where I took back live animals to the Vincent Science Hall and hooked them up to the machine to get the Heart Rate and respective portions of the q r and s wave. I took squirrels, woodchucks, mice, shrews, raccoons, chipmunks, muskrats, and even a live skunk back to the third floor by etherizing them in traps I ran back by where the ski slope is now. You can just over etherize them - no problem.
The problem of dispatching snappers is no problem at all. I can't believe Cur didn't know this one. Simply grasp the turtle by the tail, set it on the ground, kneel on it and force it to bite a broom stick, and inject the brain with a syringe filled with alcohol, just above the eye - ten ml will work on any turtle. I have dispatched dozens of snappers this way. If you don't use denatured alcohol then there is absolutely no problem with running the prepared carcass through your bug colony. I am not sure what effect denatured would be since I always use the good stuff.
and the skill to inject the damn thing without loosing a finger you might as well just take it home and throw it in a freezer. otherwise just keep pounding the crap out of it's head with a shovel. or if you can strangle it with something like steel cable or really strong rope. it takes a long time but it will kill it.
JT
I remember the local outdoorsman used to agitate the snapper into biting on a stick. the turtle would then be very adamant about not letting go of the stick and in turn the neighbor would pull on the stick while stepping on the back of the urtle. With the turtles neck exposed he would then put his trusty machette to good use on the turtle. Kind of strange though you could still not get the stick out of the turtles mouth for at least half a day