- okay, you guys ready? - [mark] i'm readyif you're ready. - i'm coyote peterson, and i'm about toenter the chomp zone with the common snapping turtle. one. two. three. (chomping)
ow! (dramatic music) for several years, ihave been on a mission. to find and catch a worldrecord size snapping turtle. throughout the process,i've encountered many of these elusivereptiles, and to do so, i usually have tojump from a kayak and into water over my head. this is one of the mostdangerous aspects of my job.
trust me when i say thati always try my best to avoid being bitten. but try as i might, when youwork with this many turtles, accidental bites dooccasionally happen. this turtle just bitthe top of my thumb off. and boy can they be painful. hold on, he's-- (screams) that's what you get forclimbing in the cage
with a bunch of turtles. then there are theintentional bites, and i think we allremember the episode where i was chomped by thealligator snapping turtle. agh! the ultimate goal wasto show you what happens when a snapping turtle locksits jaws around a victim. oh, jeez! ah!
he's through, he's through,he's through into my arm. unfortunately forme, the giant reptile just decided to chomp on my arm until its beakpierced the brace, ultimately bringingthe scene to an end. okay, the turtlecan take a break. it was one painfulexperiment that didn't exactly go according to plan. through social media irecently asked the coyote pack,
"would you liketo see me chomped by a common snapping turtle?" oh, ooh, that hurt! but it didn't draw blood. i wonder what a largerturtle would do. you guys wanna see me chomped, by the common snapping turtle? well, a whopping 95% ofyou said "yes get chomped!" so today i'm goingto do just that,
and demonstrate what happens if you ever get your hand locked in the jaws of asnapping turtle. now i know you're watchingthis video and you're thinking, "coyote this isabsolutely crazy. "this turtle's gonnabite off your finger, "it's gonna bite off your hand. "it's going to causeso much damage, "you'll have to goto the hospital."
we have thoughtabout this in advance and we actually havesome safety precautions in place to makesure that that turtle does not take achunk out of my hand. we purchased these dowel rods. what i'm going to do iscut a section of the wood and then glue it tothe side of my hand, so that when theturtle bites down, my hand will be sideways.
it's going to strikeout, wap, and latch on. now the beak is goingto pierce the top and bottom side of my hand, but what i'm reallyworried about is the scissor power of those jaws. that's why a snappingturtle bite can be so bad. their jaws are razor sharp,lined with that beak. as they bite down, thebeak cuts through the skin. now, what the wood will do
is create a barrierbetween the turtle's beak and it's ability to scissorall the way through my hand and take out atriangle shaped chunk. i know you're probablythinking to yourselves, "well, it's stillgonna bite you, "it's still gonna hurt." yes, it absolutely isand hopefully the turtle holds on the first time so i don't have to bebitten more than once.
now, once the turtle bites me, i'll show you how to geta snapping turtle off, and there are a coupleof methods you can use. the first one is water bottles. simply dumping wateronto the turtle's face, in its mouth and on itseyes should make it feel as if its back into itsnatural environment, which would be the water, and it will let goand try to get away.
now, if the water bottlemethod doesn't work, what you can do is completelysubmerge the turtle in water. if this does not work, thelast resort is rubbing alcohol. now this is somethingthat i've seen a number of different people usewhen they've been bitten by snakes or alligators. it's not gonna hurtthe animal in any way, but it's just kind of a sharp,pungent taste in its mouth, and it should force it to,agh, let go of my hand,
and the hopefully i'llbe able to show you guys how to take care of thatbite with some first aid. - [mark] and if none of thosework, you just have to wait. - yes, that is theworst case scenario. if it doesn't let go fromone of these methods, i'll have to sit there,bite my tongue in pain, and hope that eventuallythis turtle loses interest in my hand or being angry atme for letting it bite my hand, and then lets go.
oh boy. we are seconds awayfrom me being chomped by the common snapping turtle. i am definitelynervous right now. this is gonna hurt. just imagine that beakpiercing through my skin. if it bites andit holds on, hoo, it is going to beincredibly painful. and, it's not a small turtle.
it's about ten pounds in size. it is going to crunch my hand. (hissing) okay, okay. okay. now coming across asnapping turtle of this size isn't super rare, butoften times i catch turtles that are significantlylarger than this. a turtle larger thanthis would definitely do
a massive amount ofdamage to my hand. - [mark] camera two,camera three are rolling. coyote your go pro is rolling. - all right. - [mark] this is crazy! this is crazy. oh my goodness, you'reactually doing this. - yeah, well, let's seewhat happens, right? i'm coyote peterson, and i'mabout to enter the chomp zone,
with a common snapping turtle. are you ready? - [mark] let's do this. - one. he missed the wood! he's latched on my hand! - [mark] you all right? - agh! oh, he's rippingthe side of my hand!
oh my gosh! okay, i'm not gonnatouch the turtle. he missed the wood, this is bad. he's, agh! mario, gimme a bottle of water! as you can see theturtle's beak has pierced through the top of my hand andit is latched into the skin. he's got his eyes closed,jaws locked in place. just lightly drip thatonto the top of his head.
ah, ah, ah! he's biting down harder,he's biting down harder, that's not working,that's not working. argh! to lift him up andget him into the water is going to be extremely painful i'm going to go straightto the rubbing alcohol. now you can see theway that his jaws have scissored into my hand.
the beak has piercedthrough the skin. oh my gosh that hurts so bad! - [mario] you ready? - he's got the backside of my hand. yep, go ahead, just kinda dumpsome into his mouth, there. real light, real light. okay, there he goes,he's trying to get off, he's trying to getoff, there he goes. oh, wow, he cut majorholes in my hand.
okay let me dip him in the water to get that rubbing alcohol off. there you go, little buddy. - [mark] oh my goodness. - [mark] i am really nervous. you okay? - yeah. ah, jeez. oh, man, he bit right thereand slid off to the side.
oh, that hurt. hold on a second. it's almost like hismouth wasn't big enough to reach aroundand bite onto me. okay i'm gonna just getthis piece of wood off. there's the bite rightthere, you see that? - [mark] oh my goodness! he tore into you, wow. - well, the water actuallyjust caused the turtle
to bite down harder. it wasn't until we got therubbing alcohol into is mouth that it actually would let go. now you can see where the jawsscissored through my skin. wow, and the crushingpower was insane! i honestly thought thewater was gonna work and i thought i'd beable to get it back into that container ofwater to dunk it underwater. only in an emergency situation
where you didn'thave rubbing alcohol would you wanna do that. - [mark] dowel rodwas ineffective, itdidn't help at all. - it missed the dowel rod. it bit to the side. i mean i guess that's one thing you can't anticipate exactlywhere a turtle's gonna bite. let's bring the turtle back up. make sure he's okay.
come here, buddy. oh, okay, yeah, yeah, i see you. - [mark] he's like,"let's go again!" - let me hold himup kinda like this. well, that was actually apretty quick chomp and release. i thought i was gonna beable to take that pain a little longer than that, guys, but having the turtlelocked onto my hand was... phew.
that was intense. just imagine what aturtle that weighs 40 or 50 pounds could do. definitely would break your hand if not take off your fingers. i'm coyote peterson. be brave, stay wild. we'll see you onthe next adventure. (mellow music)
i know you were all thinking, "coyote, getting bittenby a snapping turtle "was totally crazy!" i agree, and trustme, it really hurt. but hopefully me being chomped by what i considerto be a small turtle will serve as a warning toeveryone out there watching. snapping turtleshave the potential to be incredibly dangerous.
do not try to catch them. do not try to pick them up. in fact, if you comeacross one of these turtles in the wild, simply admireit from a safe distance. unless the animal is provoked there's absolutely no chanceyou will end up taking a chomp. if you thought being chompedby this turtle looked painful, make sure to go back andwatch the time i put my arm into the mouth of thealligator snapping turtle.
and don't forget, subscribe, so you can join me and the crew on this season of dragon tales. he slipped in-betweenthe bamboo, and went into my arm.
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