‘Godzilla’ snapping turtle so big, Virginia officials set new record

Chris Moore and Austin Rush were working at Green Top Sporting Goods in Ashland, Virginia on August 17 when a man walked into the store and said he had a large snapping turtle he wanted weighed. It was a first for Moore.

“He had called the store earlier and said he had a huge turtle that might be a state record,” Moore said. Outdoor living. “So when he came in later, we were expecting him… But we’ve never had anyone come and weigh a turtle before. They usually bring us big fish.”

Moore explains that the man who caught the turtle is a nuisance wildlife trapper. He caught the snapper in a backwater section of the James River and brought it to the store in a large garbage can.

“I’ve never seen one that big, and we stayed away from the front of him,” Moore said. “The turtle was snapping at the garbage can and looked pretty mean, [and] and showed us that he was the boss.”

The trapper, Winston Marshall of Nuisance Wildlife Services, gently picked up the tortoise by its shell, just behind its large, menacing head. The three men tied a line around it and carefully hung it from the store’s certified scale. It weighed in at 57 pounds, with a shell length of about 18 inches. And although Virginia never kept records of giant tortoises, Marshall wanted someone from the state to come take a look.

“We filled out a card for the trapper with detailed information about the turtle and signed our names as witnesses to it being weighed and measured,” Rush said. “Then Marshall left and I believe the following Monday he contacted a state agency office.”

And indeed, on September 5, the Virginia Division of Wildlife Resources announced the first ever snapping turtle record on social media.

“While DWR does not typically keep size records for turtles, this one will certainly be recorded as the official state record,” DWR wrote on Facebook. For comparison, the agency said common snappers in the state typically weigh around 25 to 30 pounds, or about half of what “Godzilla” weighed.

Read more: Fisherman catches giant 200-pound snapping turtle, then sets world record

Common freshwater snapping turtles are found in the eastern U.S. and Canada. In U.S. waters, they are second only to alligator snapping turtles in size, which can weigh up to 250 pounds. Capturing common snapping turtles in Virginia is legal, but only for residents.

“A huge thank you to the folks at Green Top Sporting Goods for their thoughtfulness on this magnificent animal,” the DWR said in the Facebook post. “Godzilla was released back to where he was captured in Henrico County to live out his days in the waters of Curles Neck Plantation.”