Not far from where Casey Yarborough was playing golf on Wednesday, he said he heard a loud pop.
“Like a gun going off,” Yarborough said.
Yarborough, who lives in Fort Myers, Florida, was on a fairway and the sound came from the other side of a pond along the golf course in Naples. It was about 5 p.m. When he drove up to the next hole he saw what it was.
“It looked like about a 50-pound snapping turtle,” he said.
The turtle was caught in the massive jaws of what Yarborough estimated was 14-foot-long alligator. The pop he heard was the Alligator’s teeth connecting with the turtle’s hard shell. Florida is filled with incredible wildlife moments on a daily basis. This was one of them and Yarborough, 52, pulled out his cellphone and took some memorable photos.
An alligator, estimated to be 14-feet long, clasps onto a snapping turtle with its jaws at a Naples, Florida area golf course on March 20, 2024. (Photo: Casey Yarborough/Special to naplesnews.com)
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) website, American Alligators eat rough fish, snakes, turtles, small mammals, and birds. “Alligators are opportunistic feeders,” the website states. “Their diets include prey species that are abundant and easily accessible.”
They can also leave an impression on someone like Yarborough, who admitted there was a time when he was known to water ski over alligators.
“But now I might think twice,” he said.
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