Snapping turtle laying eggs before she was run over by a vehicle
The local snapping turtle made her appearance on July 19, much to my surprise. During 2009 and 2010, she deposited her eggs on June 16 and 14, respectively. She was so late this year that I thought she might not have made it through the winter. Unfortunately, as she was headed back to the stream, someone was good enough to run over her on the shoulder of the road. It was raining hard at times and visibility wasn’t great so maybe it was an accident.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the eggs. If the baby turtles take about 90 days to hatch again, they may encounter some cool weather and be too late to survive. If they hatch about 30 days earlier, the baby turtles may be too small to survive.
Bryan,
Did the turtle eggs ever hatch?
Wanda
Thanks for your interest. I never saw any evidence that any of the eggs hatched. They didn’t stand much chance with all of the truck and farm equipment on the shoulder of the road and the county adding new gravel on top of the eggs late in the season.