SNAPPERFEST '12 IS CANCELED!!!

Timothy Sizemore, proprietor of Campshore Campgrounds, with one of many unwilling participants in the "games" at Snapperfest, a "festival" of 15 YEARS DURATION near Rising Sun, Indiana. Contestants vie to be the fastest to yank a snapping or soft-shelled turtle's head out of its shell without losing a finger. In the process, they run, carrying the turtles, usually drop each one several to dozens of times, break its shell and limbs, poke its eyes, and slam it down on a tarp. They also expose themselves to salmonella and a great variety of other waterborne bacteria which are carried naturally in the intestinal tracts of wild snapping turtles.

SNAPPERFEST '12 IS CANCELED!!

This just in:

Today Collette Adkins Giese, the Herptofauna lawyer for the Center for Biodiversity got a call from a
DNR enforcement official who said that they've been told the event is
cancelled and that they are closely monitoring the situation to ensure that
it is actually cancelled.

So a victory for snappers. And on their behalf a big thanks to all the people who created petitions, promoted them, went to the various meetings that resulted in this decision. You know who you are. As Collette said "I was late to the game, everyone else deserves the praise."

But as the DNR says"They are closely monitoring to ensure that it is actually canceled." 

Which to me shows they don't trust their word as much as many of(sic) we do. 

So keep up with your monitoring of advertising, planned visits, whatever. Just do it quietly.

Let's give them a chance to be true to their word.

Allen Salzberg

Publisher/Editor

HerpDigest: The Only Free Internet-Only Weekly Newslettter that Reports on the Latest Reptile and Amphibian Scientific and Conservation News 

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Had a rough day here--20 hours without power, chasing all over creation to buy a used generator, and another severe thunderstorm bearing down on us as I write. Opened my email from yesterday to find this. I have to say, there is some seriously good turtle karma coming down right now. First the Return of Shelly, and now this!!

Thanks to all of you who responded to my appeal to write and call Indiana wildlife and county authorities. I'll likely never know if my letters to the Surgeon General and Indiana health department officials made a difference, but I'd like to think they did. Special thanks to my Snapperfest Advisory Board, made up of herpetologists, wildlife disease specialists, public health experts, government insiders and wise men and women, for making me sound smarter and better-informed than I am. Doesn't matter how it happened: it happened. And Snapperfest participants are going to have to find something else to do for fun. Tough toenail. Go play with toys, not native turtles.