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Today, instead of the wild, I'm in suburban Atlanta.
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And I'm here to learn about the conservation of one of Georgia's rarest reptiles, the Suwanee alligator snapping turtle.
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We're going to go over here.
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But first, wildlife educator Christian Cave and US Fish and wildlife consultant Greg Brashear have a surprise in store for me.
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Ready.
0:23
OK.
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I think he's going to be a little bit of a fight.
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Wait, wait.
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Whoa, you are kidding me.
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This is the alligator snapping turtle.
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This is wild.
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You're special.
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What's his name?
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That's Al.
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Big Al.
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Big Al.
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Yeah, that's fitting.
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We're in Greg's elaborate backyard turtle sanctuary, which houses over 200 rescued turtles.
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Some of them are the most endangered turtles in the world.
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I am a lifelong turtle nerd and I do work with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
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I've been in the turtle since forever.
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It's just something about him I've always been drawn to.
1:00
Greg's colleague, Christian Cave creates wildlife education and conservation content on his well known video channel.
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Check this out right here.
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This is for Talis adamanteus, or the Eastern diamondback rattlesnake.
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Growing up, it just always seemed like the animals that fascinated me the most were the creepies, the crawlies, the ones people were typically scared of.
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It feels cool to know that there's kids out there watching me that are resonating with it.
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The OH struck the camera.
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That was nice.
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So uniquely enough with alligator snapping turtles, they have us quite a lingual lore.
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So that's that little worm like appendage you're looking at.
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What they'll often do is sit right downstream of a current with that mouth wide open and just kind of wiggling that little lore around waiting for a fish to go.
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Oh, free snack.
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And right when it goes in, they'll snapshot on it.
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Yeah, it's absolutely incredible.
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So it's almost like having a fishing hook and putting bait on your hook, and then the fish are attractive.
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I got something cool to show you guys the size difference between an adult alligator snapping turtle and a hatchling.
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Man, look at this.
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So they're like, what, 50 years apart in age or something?
2:06
About 50 years apart with a male this size.
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Yeah.
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There are two different species of alligator snapping turtles.
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The baby turtle I'm holding and its dad, Big Al, are known simply as alligator snapping turtles.
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Greg is working on a field survey with the US Fish and Wildlife Service on the other species, the rare Suwanee alligator snapping turtle.
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Suwanee alligator snapping turtles get really big, but in a weird way.
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They get these really big heads from their lifestyle and diet of eating all types of freshwater mussels and clams.
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Thick ridges run down the length of this turtle's massive armored shell.
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It's no wonder they're known as the T-Rex of turtles, but to see one up close, we'll have to get out into the wild.
