Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Snapping Turtles, Geese, and Shoreline Vegetation

All three of these may have benefits, all three can present problems.

Snapping turtles: I have read some past posts on PondBoss which seem to support that snapping turtles don't really harm a pond, that they are too slow to kill active fish and clean up the dead stuff. But, folks around here say they are bad news for a pond as they easily kill active fish and raid fish nests, killing the eggs or new spawn. They can also wreck a frog population. Can somebody state what is fact or fiction to know whether I should be making some turtle soup?

Geese: Are a few ok and if so why? Obviously, too MANY and you get nutrients running into the pond and fertilizing the weeds, let alone the mess you have to walk through. Do just a few geese do any good?

Shoreline Plants: Some are invasive, like sandbar willows and cattails, and some may be benficial. Can you tell me which ones should I keep along the shoreline, such as maybe bulrushes?

Thanks for settling some debates for me.

Folks around here blame bad fishing on turtles when it is not the cause. Don't believe what you hear from the folks at the barber shop. THey do little to no damage to fish...now to baby ducks yes a snapping turtle is deadly.

Geese, I love to see a pair on my pond, problem rarely do you see just a pair. They attract more and then goose sh.. becomes a problem.

Vegetation I think in the south is important around the pond to lessen erosion, but don't like any in the pond, maybe diff in PA.
BTW did you ever get any Rodeo and spray the pond again?

I have seen problems with turtles eating baby ducks.

Rufuscatfish

HI Greg.

Unlike some parts of the country, we have had rain here every day and night. So, my pond is a mess and I am sick about it. The aquatic weeds have exploded and the shoreline willows have grown without any intervention from me since it seems the chemicals lose their effectiveness when followed by excess rain. So, I haven't tried to apply any herbicides. But, yes, I intend to spray those willows when the weather breaks, and to spray my aquatic weeds and alagae. The entire pond is making me sick.

Thanks for your voice on the turtle issue. The barber shop (more like bar crowd) I pal with insist the turtles are bad news.

What kind of shoreline plants do you keep?

Hope you are hjaving a good summer, Greg!

Thanks to all for input!

Now and then I wonder at some hostile opinions of some critters in a water garden, and go look up a library book to find out what's up...

Having seen a snapping turtle grow from a tintsy wintsy quarter size, to the dimensions of a football in a year, in that time it never bothered the pleco and the little scavenger fish that lived in its aquarium over the period... Anyways, I came across some autopsy records by someone called Brown (1992) who totted up the contents of several snapping turtles stomach contents

If you are of a nervous disposition, this won't worry you too much

Of nine snapping turtles dissected, this is the range of yummies they had foraged...

Beetles, crayfish, blanketweed, sagittaria leaves, spider cocoons, tuliptree flowers, various leaves, cattail tubers and stems, crayfish parts, parts of two sunfish, a toad, a small turtle, snake, several mussels, gastropod shells, 24, 80, 100 muscadine grapes (different snappers) parts of a juvenile musk turtle, 538 grams of corn, blue crabs....

Not a lot in the way of healthy live fish were eaten, just simple stuff browsed, not exactly the stuff of predatory encounters. My guess is, snappers are slow loafers who are on the lookout for an easy snack on a plant, a mollusc, a bug, the occasional scavenged fish if its lucky...

Snappers seem to have a notorious reputation for taking fish, perhaps this is simply down to fishing folk tend to notice the pecky little blighters will go and pester a bit of bait on a line

Regards, Andy

As always Andrew is informative with data to back up his extensive knowledge! Thanks Andrew!
Intresting that they eat so much plant matter! I have personally seen them capture large bull frog tadpoles though. It's just that I want fish more than I want turtles. I don't begrudge anyone that wants to see lots of turtles in their pond. They can be cool to watch. I can tolerate one or two but I want to save all the crayfish, beetles, & any other potential forage for my fish. I guess if you feed your fish it wouldn't make any difference at all so long as you don't ever leave your fish on a stringer as someone else mentioned on another post .. I have personel experience there too! Water snakes & turtles eat too much forage for me to allow them to take up residence in my pond.
Again, thanks Andrew .. it's really great what a guy can learn on this forum!
Ric

Andy:

A well thought out and researched response. I most agreed with your side statement that turtles may sometimes get a bad rap because they are usually present in a body of water, and like a golf club, get blamed if the fishing is bad and not something else.

I would still like to hear from more members on this topic, and any thoughts on the geese and plants issues.

But, thanks to all who have responded so far. It makes me feel better about having these critters in my pond. I prefer that they not be, but at least I won't lose sleep or time to do something about it.

On nine or so ponds here, once in a while an aquatic plant position is found to be shredded virtually to destruction. Arrowhead, hardy lilies lucida, sulphurea, ren� gerard, tropical lily tina, among others... over the period of a year a fair amount of time has been wasted skulking and stalking trying to figure out the villain of the piece....

The 'final solution' to diving in head first and being embarrassed to lose fingers to a far smarter ponder turns out to be a live trap, so far I've caught a 9" yellow belly turtle, a 6" snapper and a 4" Eastern mud turtle, probably all equally guilty of munching attractive aquatic plants. Since those have been removed this month, I seem to be down to one turtle with a 1" bite radius, and miscellaneous littl'uns which probably won't be evicted.

I'll be all ears to turtle observations, I just might be marketing a super effective humane turtle trap design any time soon

Regards, Andy