05/18/2026
The large snapping turtle was hungry when he caught a young otter pup. The pup was helpless against the turtle’s massive crushing beak.
Fortunately for the little otter, his mother was watching.
She quickly defended her baby and chased the predator away, putting herself in harm’s way to spare his life.
I don’t know if the mother returned to that rock afterward. If I had to guess, I imagine she was large enough to survive an encounter with the snapping turtle. I imagine she came back looking for her pup where she last saw him.
And I imagine she was devastated when he was gone.
I wish I could tell her…
I wish I could tell her that people in a nearby boat witnessed the entire ordeal. They saw her baby bleeding on the rock with multiple deep lacerations from the snapping turtle attack. They knew he would die out there, so they carefully lifted his weak little body from the rock and rushed him to our rescue for help.
And to be clear, the snapping turtle was not evil for what it did. This is nature. Predators have to eat too, and normally we do not interfere with natural selection. But in this case, the predator had already been chased away. The pup was left alive on the rock, gravely injured and slowly dying
When he arrived, he was severely hypothermic and in shock.
It was Saturday afternoon. Many hospitals were already closed. And these wounds were bad… really bad. I honestly didn’t know if they could even be repaired.
But I knew exactly who to call.
Dr. Leef at Heal Veterinary Clinic has worked with us for years, and I have seen her perform incredible work on some truly gnarly wounds.
By Sunday, the pup was finally stable enough for surgery.
Dr. Leef, along with veterinary technicians James Stubbs and Lauren Ulm, spent more than three hours in surgery carefully putting this little otter back together. They flushed debris from the wounds and took extra time to close everything in a way that would allow for the shortest possible healing time.
Why?
Because if there is any chance at all…
we want to try to reunite him with his mother.
Wildlife rehabilitation often means walking a very delicate tightrope between what is medically ideal and what is best for the animal from a stress and release standpoint. In this case, we have to carefully balance the seriousness of his wounds and the medical care he needs while also recognizing that the sooner a reunion can happen, the greater the chance that his mother may still accept him back.
The reality is that her love alone was not enough to save him from this situation. He needed medical intervention, and fate would have it that the right people happened to be there when he needed them most.
For now, we are monitoring him closely and speaking with state officials to determine the best path forward to give this little one the greatest possible chance of someday returning to the wild where he belongs.
I am so grateful to his finders and Dr. Leef, Lauren and James for taking hours out of their Sundays to help an animal in need.
