What Are the Predators of Turtles ?

Like most animals turtles also have their own natural predators. But at the same time, turtles are a widespread species that live in almost all places on earth, so there must be a lot of different kinds of predators that are hunting them. I was curious to find out who exactly are the predators of turtles so I did the research and here is what I found out.

Turtle predators come in a big variety of species that include: birds, mammals, reptiles, and fishes. This is a list of some of the most common turtle predators:

Raccoons
Opossums
Skunks
Sharks
Crows
Seagulls
Kingsnakes
Crocodiles
Alligators
Humans

So there are a lot of predators, and some of them are quite unexpected. In the rest of the article, I am going to explain how some species attack the turtles, when turtles are most vulnerable, how they defend themselves, and some other interesting things.

List of Turtle Predators:

Mammals

There are a lot of mammals that prey on the turtles, for example:

Dogs
Cats
Raccoons
Opossums
Skunks
Foxes
Weasels
Tigers
Lions
Jaguars
Hyenas

I added to just a few examples to the list just to get a general idea. In reality, almost any mammal that eats meat, or eggs can at some point attack a turtle if it’s hungry and no other easier food source is at its disposal.

Small mammals like raccoons, possums, skunks, and foxes will not only attack small turtles, but they will also go after the eggs that they live in the nest. Turtle eggs are very easy prey for most animals since a lot of turtles leave the nest after they are done laying the eggs.

Bigger mammals, like the tigers, lions, jaguars, hyenas, and wild dogs will not only attack small turtles, but they will also attack medium-sized and big-sized turtles if they are hungry enough. Even if turtles aren’t the most dangerous species in the wild they are very good at defending themselves, so smaller animals won’t always try to attack them, but bigger ones usually don’t have a problem with that.

Even pet dogs and pet cats can attack a turtle if their character is a little more aggressive because turtles, dogs, and cats don’t usually share the same habitats in the wild they don’t know too much about each other and they might become a little aggressive when they meet for the first time. Or sometimes the turtle might seem like a funny thing to play with.

Snakes

Snakes and turtles are both reptiles, but that doesn’t mean that they get along, but they are not aggressive toward each other without any reason. Turtles will occasionally eat small snakes, but in general, snakes don’t’ like turtles that much as a meal.

The reason why snakes don’t like to eat turtles too much is that they are hard to digest. The shell of a turtle is made out of bones that are very hard to digest. It’s not impossible but it’s very hard and usually not worth it, but there is always a possibility that a hungry snake will attack and eat a turtle.

The real danger that snakes present to turtles are that they eat their eggs. Eggs don’t put any fight, they are easy to eat and snakes are able to easily find their way into a turtle nest.

Kingsnakes in the southeastern United States are especially known for searching for nests of aquatic turtles and feeding on their eggs.

Ants

Hard to believe but ants are a really big danger for a lot of species, not only turtles, especially in the southeast. Fire ants for example are one of the most dangerous species of ants, and their strength doesn’t come from just one individual and but from the huge numbers that they are usually found.

Ants usually eat the eggs of turtles, and in some cases, they will even eat small baby turtles.

Fishes

Another surprise on this list is represented by fishes, and I don’t mean sharks, even if they are still technically fishes. When I say fishes I mean the kind that you might even have for dinner on a typical day.

It’s not very common to see a fish trying to eat a turtle, but there have been cases where a dissected fish had small juvenile or baby turtles inside their stomachs.

At the moment nobody knows if this is something that happens often or under special circumstances, but it’s a clear fact that some fishes will eat turtles.

Sharks

Even if they are still technically fishes I think they should be put in a different category than fishes.

Sharks are some of the few known predators of sea turtles. Sea turtles will reach impressive sizes and there will be few animals that can be dangerous for them in the ocean, and the shark is one of those animals.

They will usually attack the flippers of turtles when they have the chance. Very few sharks are able to actually crack the shell of a sea turtle.

Ghost Crabs

A lot of baby sea turtles will fall prey to the ghost crabs that are on the beaches at night. Baby sea turtles that just hatched don’t have any way to defend themselves, the only thing that they can do is to run for the water and try to get as far as possible.

Ghost crabs live on a lot of beaches where sea turtles nest, and even if they stand no chance against an adult sea turtle, they can easily attack a baby that has just been born.

Crocodiles and Alligators

Crocodiles and Alligators are a great danger for turtles that will venture into open waters. Crocodiles and Alligators have very powerful bites that are able to crack the shells of most turtles that live in their area.

Birds

Crows and ravens are some of the biggest predators of baby turtles and egg turtles. IN areas where aquatic turtles nest year after year, crows and ravens have been sighted observing the females as they leave their nests and then going to excavate the eggs out of the nest and then eat them. Crows have also been observed preying on baby turtles as they emerge from the nest. Since the shells of baby turtles are very soft compared to those of the adults, the crows have no problem with them.

Seagulls also represent a big danger for turtles. They can always be seen on the beaches when turtles are laying their eggs. Seagulls will dig the eggs out of the nests and eat them, and they will also attack the baby turtles after they hatch. What differentiates seagulls from other birds that do the same thing is that they are a lot more persistent and they will sometimes try to eat the eggs as soon as the female turtle is done laying them and it will not wait for it to leave.

Herons, egrets, and other wading birds are potential predators of young freshwater baby turtles. They will not always attack them like other species, but occasionally depending on the circumstances they will go after the baby turtles.

Bald eagles have been known to capture turtles and take them back to their nest where they will feed the young with the turtle.

Humans

I decided to make a separate entry for humans and not include them with mammals because of the important role they play.

We are a special case because we’ve hunted turtles for multiple reasons and we haven’t always hurt them with intention.

At some point when there weren’t so many endangered turtle species they were hunted by humans for food, and the eggs were also used for food. So until now, we did the same things that most animals did. But at some point, we started making ornamental items from the shells, and sometimes turtles were hunted not as a source of food but as a source of profit. At this moment there are still people that are hunting turtles, some to use them for food and some for commercial reasons. Endangered and vulnerable species are protected by the law so hunting them is illegal and punishable, but the fact that they are endangered makes them rarer and more valuable and some people are hunting them to sell them and gain profit from this. There are actions being taken to stop and discourage people from doing this but at the moment this is still happening.

In Asia, it was falsely believed in a lot of countries that turtle meat had amazing healing properties. This also lead to a great decline in the turtle population, since they were being hunted excessively.

So some humans will hunt turtles for food as all animals do. But hunting them for profit is something that only we are doing.

Another way we are hurting the turtles is by an indirect manner, and most of it is unintentional.

Sometimes sea turtles will travel through places where there are a lot of fishes and where humans are catching fish. Turtles can sometimes get caught in the nets that were meant for the fish. This doesn’t happen very often since zones with turtles are usually avoided but the oceans are very big and there is no certain way to tell what is happening underneath the water.

Another way we involuntary hurt their population is by developing in the areas where they nest. We didn’t always have this much knowledge about turtles and we didn’t know that what we think is a great place to build a beach house is a place where they lay their eggs. Our knowledge about turtles still has a lot to improve but for certain we aren’t doing mistakes that big again. It’s not always beach houses, but the fact that we make small changes to a beach like setting up umbrellas and making noise and having a lot of lights on can make the beach undesirable by turtles, and this is not they don’t like the way it looks but because it doesn’t feel safe for them.

By polluting the planet we are also hurting the turtle population in a great way. The plastic in the ocean is a great danger to them, and even global warming is a huge threat.

Another indirect way we are hurting turtles is by hitting them with cars, we don’t intend to hit them, and this usually happens by accident so I think this is an indirect and unintentional way since this is unintentional.

Overall we are hurting the turtle population more indirectly than directly. But we are doing our best to fix things up and to help them. A little later in the article, I am going to talk about what we are doing to help them and to fix our mistakes.

But in the end, even if we sometimes hunt turtles for other reasons than food, we still hunt them so humans can be considered predators of turtles.

What are the Most Vulnerable Turtles

In general, the most vulnerable turtles are the younger and the smaller ones.

Younger turtles lack the experience required to know how to defend or hide from predators and their shells are usually softer in the first years of life, and this means that a predator can break their shells more easily and gravely hurt them in the process.

Small turtle species will always be more vulnerable than bigger turtle species. This is because they can be taken down more easily and because more animals will try to hunt them down.

How Turtles Defend Themselves

There are 4 things that turtles can do to defend themselves:

Hide in the shell
Fight back
Hide from predators
Grow big

Hide in the Shell

The most common thing a turtle will do when it’s attacked is to hide inside the shell. Their shell is very thoughtful and it will offer a lot of protection. In some cases, the predators might even give up on attacking the turtle because they are unable to break the shell.

But hiding in the shell is not always the most efficient way to defend, if they keep doing this their shell will get damaged over time and if the shell breaks the turtle will be very vulnerable to other predators and to infections as well. And some turtle species are also unable to retract in the shell. So they will also have to do other things behind hiding in the shell.

Fight Back

At some point during a predator attack, a turtle will have to fight back, because not all predators will give up that easily.

Most turtles are equipped with two very powerful ways of responding. Their powerful bite and their claws.

A lot of turtle species have claws that they can use to scratch and hurt a predator that is attacking them. While the claws will not produce any significant damage, in some cases it can be enough to make the predator back away.

All turtles have a powerful bite which can be very dangerous to other animals. After a couple of bites smaller predators will usually give up or in some cases, they might even become the prey.

Even if turtles don’t have the most powerful tools to attack, they have a very powerful defense because they can retract in the shell. If you combine their ability to retract in the shell with the ability to bite and scratch they can become a very dangerous opponent when attacked.

Hide from Predators

The best way to get out of a fight unharmed is to not fight at all, this is why a lot of turtles spend a lot of time in places with dense vegetation where predators are unable to see them.

A lot of turtles have also developed the colors of their shell to resample the environment where they live so that they are harder to spot.

Another unique way they can hide is by retracting into their shells near rocks and trying to blend in with the environment.

Grow Big

The most efficient way a turtle has to defend is by growing big, and when I say big I really mean big.

One great example of a turtle doing this is the Galapagos tortoise. The Galapagos tortoise usually reach sizes that are around 5 feet ( 1.5 meters ) in length and a weight of about 600 pounds ( 270 kg ) and they will live more than 100 years, some will even reach 175 years. The Galapagos tortoise grows so big that when it reaches its adult stage of life it will have no natural predators in its habitat.

There are more species of turtles that grow so big that there are no predators left in the area to present danger for them. When they reach certain sizes any small predator will be crushed by a single bite of one of those turtles, and they won’t have any power to hurt such a big turtle.

What are Humans Doing to Help turtles

At the moment we, humans, are doing a lot of things to help turtles. The thing about helping an animal species is that you don’t want to intervene too much because this can drastically influence the balance of an ecosystem and this can end up hurting more animals than it helps.

Reducing Pollution

One of the ways we are helping turtles is by cutting down on pollution. Certain turtle species have almost gone extinct because of the pollution that we’ve caused.

The leatherback turtle is the biggest turtle in the world ( you can read more about it in this article: The Biggest Turtle in the World ) and its population has drastically declined, and a lot of this has to do with pollution. A recent study has found that almost one-third of the sea turtles population has eaten a plastic bag thinking it was a jellyfish. And a big number of sea turtles are

Sea turtles are also caught in old and forgotten fishing nets.

A lot of lakes and rivers, that are inhabited by turtles, are being used as dumping places for chemicals and this is drastically affecting all the animals that live in or near them, including turtles.

At the moment we are drastically reducing the consumption of plastic, we are cleaning the oceans of all forms of plastic, nets or anything that might hurt any animal that lives in the ocean. And a lot of new regulations are placed on the way that chemicals are being treated when discarded.

Global warming is also affecting turtles in a very dangerous way. The gender of a turtle is determined by the temperature of the nest where the eggs are hatching. The colder the temperature is the bigger the chances are that there will be a lot of males, the warmer it is the bigger the chances that there will be a lot of females. And as the global temperatures are rising the more female turtles will appear and a lot fewer males. If this continues to happen there will be a very dangerous imbalance in the population that can lead to extinction. The good news is that more and more people become aware of the dangers of global warming and a lot of countries and organizations are taking measures to reduce and keep this problem under control.

So even if things at the moment are not that bright, when it comes to pollution, things are definitely improving.

Protected Areas

A lot of places are becoming protected areas because vulnerable, or endangered species of turtle live there. This way we ensure that the turtles will have a safe and peaceful area where they can live and reproduce until their species grows back to an odd number.

Protected areas also include the nesting sites of sea turtles. Because a lot of them have been changed by mankind, they have become unsuitable or undesirable by the turtles that want to lay their eggs there. A lot of beaches that are normally open to the public will become closed during the mating season of turtles so that the turtles will not be disturbed when they lay their eggs.

At the moment a lot of Asian countries are importing turtles from other places and building or declaring protected areas where the turtles will be able to live peacefully. This is done in an effort to revitalize the turtle populations of the countries.

Taking Care of the Eggs

There are organizations and groups that protect the eggs and nesting sites of endangered turtles species. They do this by not allowing people to get too close to them and sometimes by keeping the predators away. This is not always the best approach because they can endanger a bird species by removing one of their food sources, but if the bird species is unaffected by this then it can become a good solution

We are also trying to build incubators that will hatch the turtle eggs. This method is only partially successful because most of the turtles that hatched were females and almost no males. Until we manage to come up with a better incubator that will produce equal numbers of males and females, this is not the best solution but it’s certainly a good start.

Education Programs

Many conservation-minded beach communities started to implement education programs like Edisto Beach, South Carolina’s “ Light off for Turtles” campaign. The purpose of this campaign is to teach people about the dangers that artificial light represents to turtles. When turtles hatch they are confused by the artificial light and instead of heading for the ocean, they go in the wrong way where they end up being hit by cars and as prey for predators. The program informs people about these dangers and is reducing the number of artificial lights that are near the beaches so that turtles don’t get confused.

There are even bigger organizations that are helping turtles by informing the people about the dangers that humans create for turtles, how to stop them or how they can help.

Overall people have caused a lot of unintentional harm to the turtle population, and at the moment there are a lot of efforts that are trying, and succeeding to reduce those problems. Some of them have quick results, like the way we take care of their nesting grounds, and some of them are more long-term that don’t have any quick results, but over time they will make drastic improvements, like the reduction of the population.

Conclusion

As I said at the beginning of the article turtles have a very widespread population and that means that they have a wide variety of predators. I am sure that you at least found a couple of them that you weren’t expecting on the list. If you have any questions about turtle predators, you should leave them in the comment section and I will do my best to try and answer them as soon as possible. And if you want to know more facts about turtles you should check the Turtle Facts category on the site.