10/07/2025
We’re hoping for a miracle for these tiny little lives, which have been in our care for fifty days. In May, a woman called us demanding that we remove a large snapping turtle who was getting ready to lay eggs in her yard. The mother turtle was in a trance-like state, completely harmless, as she readied to lay her eggs. We told this woman to leave the turtle alone.
She then called multiple other rescues, who told her the same thing: just give the turtle some space. Finding this answer unacceptable, she demanded that her landlord put the mother turtle into the trunk of his car as the poor animal was involuntarily laying eggs. He drove her to the Chattanooga Zoo, which again reiterated that she should have been left alone.
The poor mother turtle must have been scared, confused, and physically and mentally stressed. She should have had a clutch of at least 20, up to 100, but only ten eggs left her body. The Chattanooga Zoo collected them and we rushed over to try to save the eggs.
She may have ultimately become egg-bound and passed away due to this trauma. This majestic, dinosaur-like mother was ultimately driven down the road and dumped in the lake because a woman couldn’t stand the idea of sharing a planet with other life forms.
Survival for snapping turtle eggs is low, and getting lower each year because of human causes, like habitat fragmentation and invasive species, such as feral hogs and black rats, that prey on snapping turtle eggs and hatchlings . Loss of apex predators, like pumas and wolves, has caused smaller predators that eat turtle eggs to overpopulate. It’s all very bad news for these long-lived animals. One study estimated that only one-tenth of one percent of snapping turtle eggs will ever become adult snapping turtles.
This clutch of eggs could have been this mother turtle’s only chance to have surviving young, but instead, she was forced to lay eggs in the trunk of a car. By the time we got to them, all but one of them had collapsed due to the hostile environment and jostling. We tried to save all ten eggs anyway, incubating them carefully in an incubator at the correct temperature and humidity..
The results have been a bit of a surprise. One “chalked”— the first sign of viability— right on time. Two eggs died and began to rot, as we expected of the whole clutch. But, amazingly, seven of the eggs are showing signs of viability despite the fact that they had already collapsed in on themselves. They were late to chalk, but were able to see blood vessels and embryos inside all the eggs when candling them.
If only one of the eggs hatches and produces a viable baby turtle who can go home to the wild, we’ll be thrilled beyond measure. But if the seven collapsed eggs also give us live babies? That will be a true miracle.
Thank you for making our work possible.
