People are not kind or thoughtful to animals.
bpost
Member Posts: 32,664 ✭✭✭✭
I saw a BIG snapping turtle today crossing the country road i use to get home. Traffic is sparse on these roads but still cars and trucks do traverse them. I had a car behind me which is rare in this area.
The turtle, with mossy neck sticking out and about 30-50 pounds was on the LEFT edge of the road. I ignored him since he was not anywhere near me, I just passed him by admiring his "mossy back".
The cad behind me in a junker 90's to 2010' car swerved over to hit the poor snapping turtle, ON PURPOSE.
I hunt, I kill animals to eat, that is part of life. I also kill vermin and pest possums or raccoon's, they destroy my chickens plus eat all the barn cat food.
Why this jerk swerved all the way across the road to kill that poor turtle is beyond my understanding. I hope it cause severe damage to his front end components. I hope his transmission blows up on the way to his destination in the morning.
It is one thing to harvest game and dispatch vermin but a poor OLD slow and humble turtle, going as fast as he can should not be a target for killing with your car.
Comments
There might be part of reason the country is in the sheet hole.
We are supposed to be good stewards of natures bounty, and yes that includes humane harvest and eating the bounty.
Running down any creature is a horrible way to murder anything.
He Dog, I even dodge snakes.
they do it here all the time, makes me sick. several large fox squirrels live near here and you see them often. they are rather slow moving and arent real afraid of humans. saw where someone had run over one the other day. you would have to make an effort to do that. my daughter helped a rather large alligator snapping turtle out of the road this morning before someone could kill it. i totally agree with you bpost.
I stop and get turtles off the road every chance I get.
It makes me sick that someone would deliberately run over a big turtle like that. I'd like to punch that jerk in the nose.
About 10 years ago I was a couple of blocks from my house and there were two young women putting a large turtle in a cardboard. I stopped and asked what they were going to do with it. They said they were going to make turtle soup. I offered them $20.00 for it and put it in my truck. There is a large pond about 1/4-1/2 mile away. I took it home and strapped the box on my Polaris and drove to the pond. It probably came from there anyway.
The poor critters are just doing what nature has them do, as we are called to do. It is spring, mating season is in full force for many of God's critters. Killing these creatures when you can easily avoid them by not changing direction is not too much to ask.
Squirrels are often in the road during the morning during my travels (60K miles a year). They are doing squirrel things, finding something we leave behind good vittles. I will not endanger other drivers or crash to avoid them; but keeping course on the road seems to work out well for the squirrel in most cases. This jerk behind me hit that poor turtle on purpose. I really hope he suffers karma from killing that poor guy. A very expansive transmission repair might be in order for him or her.
Drive around until you find his vehicle and cut all four tires off of it..put him walking...
I recollect a story about someone buying actual size turtles made of plastic that looked very real and placing hardened sharpened 3d star spikes inside. If you swerved to hit the turtle, you were going to get a flat tire.
I have hit and killed four maybe five deer I lost count on the way to work early in the morning over a 25 year period
I could not even guess the times I stopped or swerved to miss them . the ones I hit came up fast and out of obstructed views from the ditch lines tree lines . never liked it or the damage they did to my cars and trucks . my sons have hit a few and a couple ran into the side of my oldest sons vehicle twice over a 5 year period . lot of them around in the sprig as noted mating season
when my wife and I were fist married , she was driving and out of no where a ground hog ran into the road right in front of us no way to react she hit it and pulled off the road and started crying . of course I said WTH wrong . in tears she said I killed it .
she caught me off guard as she grew up her dad butchered animals for food . but she had never been in the killing process and had never hit any thing with a car .
in the spring and fall she drives 20 MPH on the same roads I hit all the deer ( I guess good for her ) it got her pulled over one Friday night by a Sherriff . for going slow and late at night , she just left work . he thought another Friday night drunk , and pulled her over but did apologize some what
"I really hope he 'suffers karma from killing that poor guy. A very expansive transmission repair might be in order for him or her."
I was thinking something much more physically painful...
I really detest people that do things like you described. They needed some good * whoopin's when they were younger. Now they just need beat.
Hopefully it screwed up his tire....🐢
You should have pulled over, and got their plate number.....
I will never understand how some people can sleep with themselves at night! Live and let live was something engrained in me from an early age. I do admit to those dead frogs I took out with my BB gun many moons ago, but guilt soon found me.
I do kill things still mainly for the table or mercy sakes but mostly enjoy just seeing wild things doing what wild things do. I just wish some folks would realize that critters have a basic right to live.
"It is one thing to harvest game and dispatch vermin"............snappers qualify on both counts..........good to eat and they kill a lot of wild life (ducks mostly and a lot of fish)
TLM
I would not ever hit a turtle on purpose as they meander about from pond to pond. And people who would run over any kind of turtle is an ignorant, illiterate bastage, imo. Although I will have mosquitoes bounce off my window and I don't care to hurt that population whatever they are good for.
Know what the last thing on a mosquitoes mind is when it hits the windshield?
The poor critters are just doing what nature has them do, as we are called to do.
"It is one thing to harvest game and dispatch vermin"............snappers qualify on both counts..........good to eat and they kill a lot of wild life (ducks mostly and a lot of fish)
I most recent "interaction" with a bunny cop involved a large snapping turtle that had IMHO snatched almost all of a hen mallard's hatch in the first 2-3 days of the ducklings taking to the water. I felt very smug about blowing 1/2 the top of that turtle's shell off with a .223. Apparently, the act was witnessed by a busy body who turned me in and the local BC was in my driveway within minutes.
I admitted dispatching the turtle(not legal to shoot them) and gave my reason. Bunny Cop said "Mother Nature made snapping turtles and Mother Nature made baby ducks and how they live is the law of Nature". I commented "That's a fine idea unless you're a baby duck". Must have made my point as I only got a verbal warning.
i know plenty of old river rats that would lock up the brakes, swerve over to a screeching halt, and jump out to catch that turtle and throw in the bed of the truck. Turtle mulligan is a masterpiece of fine eating
but they would eat it not just run it over
I'm sure the guy that ran over the snapping turtle had some moronic justification in his mind while doing it.
Probably something along the lines of...
A snapping turtle will empty the streams and rivers of fish.
A snapping turtle will kill ducks or water birds or some such thing.
Just like when I tell locals about the Bobcat in my backyard. 1st question out of them is - did you shoot it?
Do you also shoot Hawks and Eagles? They eat baby ducks too.
You knew it was illegal to shoot an Alligator Snapping Turtle. Did it anyways and are on here bragging about it.
Do you have any personal ethics?
The game warden should've taken your gun, truck, and gave you a nice hefty fine. Maybe then you would learn the difference between right and wrong.
A couple of years ago my wife came in the house almost hysterical. She found a snapping turtle on our driveway. We are a good 1/4 mile from the river and it was about 100 degrees out so I grabbed it by the tail put it in the pickup and drove him to the river. I am relatively certain he would not have made it there by himself in the heat of the summer.
my wife and I have stopped many times especially down south while in the mountains too get a turtle out of the road ( I only hope we put it on the side it wanted t be on ) .
if it was about to escape he sometimes would go after it, and clean it immediately. if he had time, he would pick it up and toss into the truck bed and clean later. in all times that snapping turtle was eaten. he avoided all other turtle/terrapin species
i try real hard to avoid critters in the road...mostly deer get killed here...haaave stopped numerous times removing some critter before it gets blasted , will find some big turtles miles from a creek ????
No problem with hunting here........but going out of the way to kill an animal for the sake of killing it is messed up.