I think that most people worry about the turtles at first, but we tend to relax our concerns after a while.

First off, eradicating turtles will be a lesson in futility. Build a pond and they will come, and keep coming.

Secondly, I think of them more as pond vultures rather than something like GBH's or otters. I'm sure a turtle gets lucky every now and again, but they are not out there slaughtering our stock, and may be more of a benefit than we realize...by cleaning up the dead and dying.

Now, I told a bow-fishing buddy the other day that if I get more than three snappers showing up at feeding time that he was more than welcome to thin the herd. I have not seen any sliders or painted turtles at my pond this year, but there will be a limit to how many can be sponging off the feed too. I just don't think my buddy will eat those. I may have to feed them to the snappers if they get too abundant. Turtles will eat other turtles.

Turtles will eat just about anything they can catch. Vegetation is easy to catch and so are sick/dying and dead fish or other animals that die near by. A snake might be easier to catch than a fish.

The alligator snapper is very rare around my neck of the woods, in fact, I have only heard of people seeing them. But, they will actually lure a fish with it's worm-like tongue to catch them for dinner. These turtles are probably the biggest threat as they are considered the largest freshwater turtle. I would hate to see what a 200 pound alligator turtle would do to a stocked pond. "FEED ME!"

Fish on!,
Noel