Thanks for your interest and the kind words, mush appreciated.

Raccoons are very adaptable and amazingly clever at solving problems…I have trapped scores of them in the heart of Manhattan, where they even once invaded the Metropolitan Museum of Art! At the Bronx Zoo I cared for a group of females housed in outdoor pen surrounded by a wall that they could not scale, due to it’s angle…but they became pregnant every year, because the more nimble wild males could enter and leave at will!

Turtles over a foot long or so are likely safe when in the water, but nesting females of that size or a bit more can be flipped over and attacked (river otters take them in this manner also). The snapper’s plastron is very small and leaves a great deal of flesh exposed. However, raccoons also seem to “weigh the risks”. I rarely find predated female snappers at a nesting site I’ve monitored for years, yet most eggs are taken. They nest at night, when raccoons are active, so the raccoons must ignore the females in favor of the eggs. In Jamaica Bay, NY, raccoons took almost 100% of each season’s Diamondback Terrapin eggs until nest protection measures were instituted.

You might enjoy this article on raccoon-green iguana interactions in Florida.

Please let me know if you need any further information. Good luck, enjoy and please keep me posted.

Best regards, Frank Indiviglio.

I am surprised that raccoons can kill and eat a snapping turtle, except maybe baby ones. How big need a snapping turtle be to be safe? How does the raccoon avoid being bitten by an edible snapper on the larger side? How do they kill them?

Thanks; I can’t seem to find the reference, but here is a link showing ways you can act to stop an upcoming “festival” in which snapping turtles are tortured and killed for “fun”.

Please let me know if you need any further information. Good luck, enjoy and please keep me posted.

Best regards, Frank Indiviglio.

Thanks for your interest in our blog. It would not be a good idea. While snappers find and consume dead and perhaps live mammals on occasion, their digestive systems are not designed to handle fur; always a chance of an intestinal blockage. Whole fishes are the best source of calcium, and many other nutrients, for snappers.

There is never any reason to feed a live mammal to a snapper – they kill mammals rather “clumsily” to put it gently, and there really is no point in subjecting an animal to that. Pre-killed mice or rats are fine on occasion, but I’ve always used pinkies or rat pups, even for large turtles, to be on the safe size. Fish are preferable, crayfish also, if available.

A large (206 lb) alligator snapper at the Bronx Zoo had subsisted on pre-killed rats for years without incident, but the animal did pass large, compacted hair balls which could have caused a problem at some point; I switched the turtle to a fish, crayfish and snail based diet once it came under my care.

I bred Chipmunks in captivity many years ago – very interesting little beasts, if you ever want to expand your collection, but among the most unsociable rodents I’ve ever run across; hard to keep 2 together without a fatality, even in the breeding season!

Please let me know if you need any further information. Good luck, enjoy and please keep me posted.

Best regards, Frank Indiviglio.

Thanks for your interest in our blog.

Large snapping turtles will attack and even consume smaller ones. They are best housed alone.

Good luck and please keep me posted.

Best regards, Frank Indiviglio.

Thanks for your interest in our blog.

There is not much research on this subject, but tests run by a National Geographic researcher indicate that an adult common snapping turtle can exert a bite pressure of 1,000 pounds per square inch; Alligator Snappers exceed that – 1 test showed 1,500 lbs PSI. Pressure doesn’t seem to equate directly with injury potential – tooth structure (turtles do not have teeth) and how the bite is delivered are important factors.

I do know of an individual who lost a finger to an Alligator Snapper; Common Snappers have caused severe wounds, i.e. bites that severed nerves and reached to the finger bone.

Best regards, Frank Indiviglio.