My turtle nemesis is back--I caught her yesterday but don't know if it's too late

[Clyde]

Hello. In case anyone missed this thread last year, in late August I found three baby turtles in my skimmer:

Three baby turtles in my skimmer-- what do I do and how how does it affect pool chem?



Fast forward to yesterday, and I looked out my window, and I see a VERY large snapping turtle sauntering through my backyard. Not knowing much about turtles, I thought that they lay eggs in the pool. So I dutifully put on gloves, and gingerly lifted this rather large turtle into a big plastic bucket. Luckily my hands were nowhere near the turtle when she snapped and nearly scared me to death (and she snapped MUCH faster than I would have ever imagined). I brought her to the end of the street and released her in the woods.

I now researched turtle mating, and it appears that turtles lay eggs on the land in CT in June, and they hatch in August, which lines up perfectly with last year's fiasco. Once hatched, the baby turtles instinctively walk to a water source (i.e., my glorious, and extremely well balanced pool).

Does anyone have any advice on what I should do? It is OK to just wait and see if the turtles hatch and find the pool, or should I canvass the yard and see if I can find the nest and remove them from the property? What do people typically do in this situation?

 

[turbo v6 camaro]

depends, if it was a protected turtle you can not do anything about it really, even moving it may have been a crime. if it is and you find eggs you can the state conservation and they may come get them.

if is it just s regular turtal it will mostlikey find its way back all you can do is move the babies again lol

 

[camueller]

I say it is perfectly ok to just let them hatch and find the pool, and evict them at that point, and plan on doing it year after year. It isn't going to harm the pool unless you left a dead one in there for several days. And even then you'd just need to SLAM it, not a huge deal.

if you find the eggs, maybe see if you can find some kind of wildlife rescue type person in your area that will help you figure out what to do with them. Otherwise just leave them till they hatch. Seems like the easiest thing to me.

 

[jeffbrig]

I've rescued baby turtles, ducklings, a baby possum, even a small snake out of the pool. All were perfectly fine and released. The pool was fine too...