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
