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
