Posted on 07/27/2016 7:32:51 AM PDT by NRx
...A jogger named Geoffrey Frank saw the blood and the action that drew it. In a graphic video he posted to Facebook, it is possible to hear the meaty crack of the hammer against the turtle shell over Frank’s horrified murmurs of protest.
Frank turned a corner on the trail that runs near Lady Bird Lake to see, as he told Austin’s KXAN-TV, Washington swing the tool down upon the turtle’s shell. On his second loop, the turtle was dead.
It was “sick,” Frank said to KXAN. He watched as the man “smashed it to death with a hammer.”
The animal was still hooked with the fishing line. Washington struck the animal at least 10 times, police told Fox 7, caving in its skull. While witnesses called for him to let the turtle be, according to Frank’s account Washington allegedly dragged the turtle carcass away from shore, left the body and took off in his car...
...Washington said that he was simply protecting himself. The reptile had lunged at him, he said, according to the affidavit. He acknowledged to police he had made no effort to cut the line or unhook the turtle. Police countered that the witness accounts dispute the claims of self-defense and a fast death for the turtle.
As the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department told the Midland Reporter-Telegram, only licensed hunters can catch turtles in Texas. It is also possible he will be fined for illegally dumping dead wildlife. The charge of animal cruelty is a state jail felony under the Texas penal code. Washington’s bond was set at $5,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Omg hahah!!
Pigeon like.. Hey what up turtle, I gonna peck ya in the.. AHHGGG!!!
“If a man can’t dodge a “lunging” turtle, he shouldn’t be out and about.”
Have you ever seen a snapping turtle lunge? They aren’t very slow when they attack...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxHDM7eDCKI
“It was coming right at me!”
Can’t understand anybody wanting to harm a turtle (except for snapping turtles - but I leave those alone). Turtles are almost as cute in person as they are in cartoons. I’d actually take a little risk to help a turtle...
Hmmmm, the turtle was snagged on a fishing hook/line, making said turtle rather pissed-off.
I would have to assume the “jogger” was dealing with a snapping turtle [which can grow large enough such that they cannot retract into their shell when approached]. In my experience, they can actually achieve weights near 30 pounds or more.
I also assume the jogger carried a hammer for personal protection (not just from reptiles?).
To wit, I have ^slayed^ aggressive swans on the golf course with my 9-iron. I have also kicked and struck snapping turtles from the fairway several times in my life.
I don’t care about them...I care about my physical health. Plus, they make a great stew.
Haven’t tried it but it must be good. It was so popular a couple centuries ago they started running short of turtles and had to invent “mock turtle soup” to satisfy demand.
Whoo-boy! I hate it when those spry suckers lunge at me! Don’t you?! It almost as frightening as when they start flying around your head singing “I’m the steady tortoise I WILL win the race!”
Looks like this guy picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
I hope he gets the maximum penalty.
well a snapping turtle can be a hell of an adversary!
Seems like just cutting the fishing line ought to have been sufficient, but in a culture where turtles are food, I can’t imagine that this poor guy ever suspected he was doing something that would horrify the internets.
What a jerk! If he took my animal self-defense course, he wouldn’t need a hammer, and the turtle would have been left mostly uninjured.
I helped save a snapping turtle that was trying to cross a busy road once. He would been run over. Used a snow shovel to toss him back into the creek. I hope he lived.
Last time I went into the local Chinese supermarket, they seemed to have plenty of live turtles swimming in the tank.
Turtle soup... Mmmmm, yummy!
He should have sheltered and called 911 when attacked.
Long story short, once it was on land it turned into a true monster. I eventually succeeded in lifting him off the ground by my fishing line, which was amazingly still intact.
I put four rounds of .380 Remington "Golden Sabre" hollow points in his head at point blank range, and they completely penetrated the length of the body and exited through the shell near his tail, with no apparent result.
We finally got a shovel and turned him over on his back. Six hours later, when my brother-in-law got home from work, he was still squirming around trying to flip himself.
Mr. Washington may as well have CRACKHEAD branded onto his forehead.
“Trying to imagine a turtle lunging at him makes me think of the killer bunny from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
Oh good one, I had forgotten about that!
“Not an “animal rights” loon by any stretch, but when you are in a animal’s natural turf, assuming no aggression, we are the guests.”
No. We are the apex predators. We have a duty to conserve resources and be good stewards. Animals are not people. It degrades human life to anthropomorphise animals.
The man may have wasted resources with the turtle. He may have served as a bad example for others.
But he was not a “guest” of the turtle.
I agree, and I have no problem with anyone killing any animal for food or legitimate defense of life, property, or livestock. I hunt, I fish, and as a kid I helped slaughter animals on a friend's small farm. However, this guy - who looks as though he's one crack pipe puff away from losing his last synapse (see post #17), was clearly getting his jollies by torturing an animal. He wasn't harvesting it for food and the notion that he had to "defend himself" from it (as opposed to just cutting the line) is beyond stupid.
Animals aren't people and they don't have "rights," but anyone whose idea of fun is to inflict pain on them for its own sake is a sick individual who probably doesn't deserve rights either.
“Six hours later, when my brother-in-law got home from work, he was still squirming around trying to flip himself.”
One of the more interesting labs in one of my neurozoology classes had us drill out the brains of turtles to study their swimming reflex. They’ll go for quite a long time if one is careful with the drill.
On another note, we were out catfishing when one of my buddies hauled up a VERY large snapper on his set line. It was so angry that even after the line was cut, it would move towards us, not the river. I’d believe the self-defense ploy if it was a snapper.
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