Eating Turtles As A Survival Food

Turtles are a great source of food when you are living off of the land. They are common in most wet areas and aren't really difficult to catch. However, before proceeding with how to catch and clean turtles, let's first discuss safety.

Turtles are not normally considered dangerous, but there are a few species that grow large enough to inflict a painful bite. So care must be taken when handling live turtles. Secondly, it is best to not eat box turtles. Box turtles often eat mushrooms that are poisonous to humans and therefore, should be avoided. And as always, be mindful of your surroundings as turtles live in an environment that harbors multiple hazards such as venomous snakes and mosquitoes. Also, the Hawksbill Turtle, who lives in the open oceans, also should be avoided as its thorax gland is poisonous.

Catching Turtles
In clear sandy rivers it is easy enough to catch soft-shelled turtles once they are spotted, but what about the more common situation where they are living in a lake or pond. We are all familiar with turtles basking in the sun on logs and then sliding off into the protection of the murky depths when danger presents itself. You can use this trait against them.

To catch these turtles simply takes building a simple turtle trap. The trap is nothing more than a floating log, some wire mesh or a natural fiber net and a length of cordage.

To build the trap you simply place a floatable log in the water. Hopefully you can find one already in or near the water. Tie the log off to the bank so that it can be easily and quickly retrieved whenever you want to catch some turtles.

You must secure the mesh or netting beneath the in such a manner that it encircles most of the log on both sides and have the sides rise above the water surface. Picture a big dip net beneath the log but with the log sticking out on two sides of the dipnet. That is it!

How it works is simple. Deploy the trap into the water and leave. Any time you want to catch a turtle simply approach the water and see if any turtles are sunning on your log. If so then grab the cordage and begin pulling the log towards shore. The turtles will slide off of the log to escape, but will not be able to, because the net will have them trapped. Given enough time the turtles will be able to figure out how to get out of the net, but not nearly soon enough to escape if you are there tending the trap.

Works great. Of course, this isn't a trap that will catch turtles all by itself like most animal traps are designed to do. You need not worry about the turtles figuring out it is a trap while you are gone either. They just aren't that smart.

OK, so your turtles are caught now what? How to clean a turtle.