Turtle rescue is no snap

By CLARA GERMANI

Staff writer

A lazy summer afternoon taught 6-year-old Jonah McCollom a lesson or two about reptiles and men.

He and his mom were playing in Central Park when they spied an armored snapping turtle trying to cross Main Street traffic and decided to try to divert it back to Luta Creek.

In the course of a few minutes, Jonah dubbed the turtle Leonardo (after a teenage mutant ninja) only to learn that, by any other name, a snapping turtle can be just as hostile.

“He bites,” Jonah cried as his mom, Gladys Cristales, picked up the 10-pounder only to feel the jolt of the turtle snapping air. She promptly put him down.

They successfully coaxed Leonardo off asphalt and onto Central Park grass when the cavalry arrived: a more impatient man-splaining Texas transplant, Daniel Henry, who swerved his car out of traffic to come to the rescue – of whom, it wasn’t quite certain.

In an abrupt halt to the sweet tenor of the mom-and-son rescue effort, Daniel used his foot to forcefully roll the snapper further toward the creek, declaring that the turtle’s jaws could snap a branch.

Jonah was alarmed.

“Is he hurting him?” he said.

His mom tried to make the best of it.

“No, he’s helping him,” she said.

Then, a water moccasin slithering in the grass provided a diversion Leonardo needed to make a getaway as everyone shifted snakeward.

In the end, Mom and worried Jonah were relieved to see the turtle chomp down on a branch extended by the Texan, who then dragged the turtle to the water.

The next time they drove past the park, just a half hour later, Jonah asked his mom: “Remember the turtle?”