Turtle Torture Lady [DISTURBING]

Jesse releases an adorable baby snapping turtle into a wetland, while he shares the awful story of an adult snapping turtle we tried to save earlier that day.Show more

We received a disturbing message about a person -- a 75-year-old lady -- who was illegally poaching and torturing turtles. This is NOT like our usual videos, it's much sadder and more disturbing. This is a horrible story about someone who showed no concern for the awful pain she inflicted on a living animal. She admits she knew she was torturing a nesting female, who was just trying to lay her eggs. And she admits she has done it before.

Sadly, many snapping turtles and snakes and other reptiles are abused badly, by seemingly decent people, who would usually never hurt birds or mammals. We hope this video will raise awareness that reptile lives matter, that it is illegal to harvest snapping turtles during most of the year, and that it is cruel and unusual to torture animals by baking them in the sun.

SNAPPING TURTLE UPDATE 5/22/22:
Law enforcement made contact with the Turtle Torture lady, Sandra Leathery. Officers successfully retrieved the turtle, which was STILL ALIVE!!

The turtle was illegally poached out of season, and is now able to be returned to the wild. If you happen to know Sandy, please tell her to stop inflicting cruel and unnecessary pain on helpless, nesting animals. Honorable hunters and fishermen despise poachers and animal abusers. If you don’t know Sandy, please be respectful and let law enforcement deal with her.

If you know of other reptile wildlife crimes, please call your local Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission office or dial 911 and ask the dispatcher for assistance. Thanks everyone for giving reptiles a chance!

UPDATE 8/19/22
We had contacted Sandy back in May before we published the video, but she did not respond to us. Finally more than three months later, 8/18/22, she contacted us, claiming she is going to sue the rescue if we don't remove the video. She claims the local judge is okay with trapping or killing snapping turtles out of season, because she was only trying to "protect her dogs". She said we are spreading lies about her by sharing her public Facebook post. I asked her to please tell me if we shared anything that was factually inaccurate, as we are only quoting her own words from a public internet post. I invited her to submit a statement with "her side of the story" but it seems that she is not interested in doing so. She just says she's going to sue the rescue if we don't take down the video, exposing her actions. We will let you know if she follows through on her threat to sue the rescue for talking about what she did.

Please remember, you can LEASH YOUR PETS around wildlife in order to protect them. That is much better than torturing and killing wildlife needlessly. Most of the world's pet owners do not torture and kill wildlife to "protect their pets".