If you plan to try to swim to see Willie Nelson sing at the Surf Lodge Read this story!
I was awakened last week by a phone call from a friend to come at once with my camera to his home right on Fort Pond. I asked why but he said just get here quick and bring a camera. I dressed and drove over. When I arrived there was a small crowd of Montauk regulars gathered in front of this man’s front door looking at a huge snapping turtle wedged up against the downstairs front door as if it wanted to get in. I did some research and found out that snapping turtles usually grow up to a foot long growing at about 2 inches per year. They can live for up to thirty years in captivity and longer in the wild. Fossils of them can be found from prehistoric times up in Montana and the Dakota’s. There are different species that are in Europe and Asia then the ones here in Montauk. They come from the alligator snapping turtle family. The record for North American snapper turtles is 18.5 inches. The one we had was that large if not larger. Up close it looked like a mini dinosaur. A few weeks before I was listening to some surfers talking while at the new Surf Lodge on Fort Pond. As they were looking out at the pond from the beach at the Lodge one was joking that a big snapping turtle was going to bite his buddies toes, “No way dude, there aren’t any in this lake,” the dude replied. Well dude there are or at least there is one huge one. So after I photographed this giant snapping turtle someone tried to move the turtle and it came to life. With a certain quickness its head came out of the shell about eight inches and it made a menacing attempt to bite something. Its mouth had teeth and seem to open large enough to fit my big toe easily. It was only then that I thought about the windsurfers and riders of those small sailboats that have their toes dangling over the edge of the boards or boat. Or those who live on the Pond who go for private swims, for men I would recommend after seeing this snapping turtle’s size and its teeth, always wearing a bathing suit. My friend was becoming a bit concerned so he called the Town Police who told him they don’t do turtles so just pick it up and throw it in the lake. He called an animal group which told him how to pick up the turtle by its tail; he was not having any part of that. More people were showing up and this turtle was attacking quite a crowd. Finally we began to figure out how in god’s name did the snapping turtle get to the door with no direct path to the lake. He was 60 yards away, with a patio, the house and a wooden fence with closed gates. Did he come from the neighbor’s house through the nearby hedges, no one was sure but the theories were very interesting, the best being an x girl friend may have dropped it off. One thing for sure was it didn’t want to be touched and it seemed to want to get into the house. Finally a bunch of nearby gardeners came by who seemed to be from South America and quite frankly seemed happy to see the large creature and knew how to pick it up. It was as wide as the gardener who picked it up and its tail was very long. Even with the skilled technique the gardener used the turtle starting snapping wildly into the air, it did not like being up in the air, perhaps never was before in the thirty years it had been alive, maybe never saw humans before for that matter. It looked very menacing, and I swear although I don’t know Spanish it sounded like the gardeners were debating taking this huge snapping turtle home and cooking it, or make turtle jerky out of it. I am sure they debated it before deciding to bring it back to the pond. Slowly the parade to the shore of Fort Pond preceded and the turtle was plucked down on the shore line. It started to come back out but when a gentle pond wave touched it, it stopped took one last look at the spectators and started to swim away. It was unbelievable how quickly the snapping turtle moved. It surely must be a formidable hunter in that pond. Since I haven’t heard of anybody losing a toe at Fort Pond this snapping turtle must not fancy human toes, or maybe he hasn’t sampled one yet. So when around the Fort Pond and for those of you who live there keeps your eyes open you have been warned, a very large snapping turtle near the record size if not larger exist in Fort Pond.
