'Dangerous' turtle that can bite through bone found in Cumbria…
 

…a UKTurtle that we might not feel so filled with joy to see…?…./..hai Benjamin….


A "dangerous" turtle with a jaw strong enough to bite through bone has been found in Cumbria.

Alligator snapping turtles are native to rivers and swamps in Florida, and are recognisable thanks to their armour-like shells, which give them a pre-historic, dinosaur-like appearance.

After a number of sightings of the freshwater reptile, it was retrieved from beside Urswick Tarn by local parish councillor Denise Chamberlain - who put the animal in a shopping basket and took it to a vet.

"It was starting to look quite sorry for itself," she told The Westmorland Gazette. "I rang various agencies who were unhelpful. Everyone thought it was a terrapin - it's not."

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Ms Chamberlain claimed the turtle was dumped by an exotic pet owner who was "no longer able to look after it".

She urged any owners in similar positions to contact agencies such as the RSPCA rather than dumping animals and hailed the staff at Wild Side Vets in Barrow as "heroes" for dealing with the turtle.

Alligator snapping turtles are an invasive species which can "easily" bite through bone and "have been known" to sever human fingers, according to the Britannica encyclopaedia.

The turtles are hunters who typically feed on fish, frogs, small mammals and even other turtles. They can grow to 100cm long and weigh up to 90kg.

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/dangerous-...092600909.html

yeah, a 90kg armoured biting machine could do some serious damage :worry:

…it’s very similar in appearance to an alligator snapping turtle, it’s quite prehistoric…half turtle/half triceratops, maybe…

…maybe it’s just lost it’s way and now found itself in Cumbria …or maybe these species are what more and more water pollution in our seas are evolving…

it may have been an exotic/illegal pet that someone got bored with or couldnt afford to feed. Either way i wouldnt want to meet one paddling in the river

It’s a fresh water species .. obviously discarded by someone for whatever reason ..

Ideally it should be in a zoo but it was presumably far easier to simply dump it


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Yes typical of some humans,as soon as they get fed up of something lets dump it. whether its a living creature or not,no regard for anything.