Chris Moore and Austin Rush were working at Green Top Sporting Goods in Ashland, Virginia on Aug. 17 when a man walked into the store and said he had a large snapping turtle he\u2019d like to have weighed. It was a first for Moore.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d called the store earlier and said he had a huge turtle that might be a state record,\u201d Moore tells Outdoor Life<\/em>. \u201cSo, when he walked in later, we were expecting him \u2026 But we\u2019d never had anyone come in to weigh a turtle before. They usually bring us big fish.\u201d<\/p>\n Photo via Facebook<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Moore explains that the man who caught the turtle works a nuisance wildlife trapper. He\u2019d trapped the snapper in a backwater stretch of the James River, and he brought it into the store in a large trash can.<\/p>\n \u201cI never saw one that big, and we stayed away from the front end of him,\u201d Moore says. \u201cThe turtle was snapping at the trash can, looking pretty mean, [and] showing us he was boss.\u201d<\/p>\n The trapper, Winston Marshall of Nuisance Wildlife Services, carefully picked up the turtle by its shell, right behind its large, menacing head. The three men tied a line around it and hung it carefully from the store\u2019s certified scales. It weighed 57 pounds, with a shell length of roughly 18 inches. And although Virginia hasn\u2019t ever maintained records for giant snapping turtles, Marshall still wanted someone with the state to come look at it.<\/p>\n Photo via Facebook<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u201cWe filled out a card for the trapper with detailed information about the turtle and signed our names to it as witnesses to it being weighed and measured,\u201d says Rush. \u201cThen Marshall left, and I believe he got with a state agency office that following Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n Sure enough, on Sept. 5, the Virginia Division of Wildlife Resources announced the first-ever snapping turtle record on social media<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough DWR typically does not maintain size records for turtles, this one will definitely be recorded as the official state record,\u201d the DWR wrote on Facebook. For comparison, the agency said that common snappers in the state typically weigh around 25 to 30 pounds, or roughly half of what \u2018Godzilla\u2019 weighed.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/virginia_record_snapping_turtle.jpg?strip=all&quality=85&w=1500\")