Larisa Avens

Leonard, the 75-year old pound net fishermen who works with us to catch sea turtles here in North Carolina, has some very interesting theories about sea turtle behavior. He has often told us that, “if a loggerhead gets a-hold of you, he won’t let go ‘til it thunders”. At the time he first told me this, what I had seen of loggerhead behavior didn’t give me the impression that it was necessarily true. So, I mentally filed the information away as another piece of ‘Down East’ North Carolina folklore.

Then, I met loggerhead XXN184.

From the time XXN184 came on board the fishing skiff, this mid-sized juvenile was on a rampage, tearing up everything in the bottom of the boat. Attempts to take blood samples were repeatedly thwarted as the turtle bucked like a bronco and crawled unceasingly around on the deck. Still, I needed loggerheads for my behavioral experiments, so I brought the turtle back to the lab.

The next day, while attempting to take XXN184 out of my experimental arena, I got the chance to test Leonard’s theory. Imagine the following scenario: The arena was 5 feet tall and filled with 2 and a half feet of water, so to get XXN184 out I had to lift the 33 kilo (74 pound) turtle up to shoulder-level, climb up on a step-stool, and place the turtle into a holding container just over the edge of the tank. As I was standing with one foot on the ladder and one leg over the side of the tank with XXN184 resting on the edge, the turtle suddenly pushed itself around and bit down hard on my inner thigh. For the next few minutes (although it seemed like much longer than that), the turtle squinched its eyes shut and chewed on my leg, never showing any sign of letting go. In fact, I was only able to get XXN184 off my leg by pulling the turtle away each time it readjusted its grip. Needless to say, by that point, I was praying for thunder but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

See below for the end result...thanks to a sturdy pair of waders, it was a lot better than it could have been!