Who knew snapping turtles were murderous beasts!

Every year I have two beautiful swans visit my pond for the spring through fall and every year they have babies. This year they had 9, so my neighbor says. When the babies finally made it down to my end of the pond, there were only 7. Then a couple of weeks later (Memorial weekend) there were only 5. This passed weekend they were down to two. Two days ago while my husband was out working on our deck, he heard some crazy splashing noises coming from the pond. He turned around and saw momma and daddy swan furiously pounding on the water as one little baby swan was taken under by a turtle! The final baby climbed onto mommas back and swan around like that for a very long time. At one point my husband saw the turtle pop it's head out of the water with the baby swan. Him and his buddy quickly went to the other side of the pond where the baby was alone for a moment. They tried to get it away from the turtle. They saw a huge chunk taken out of it's chest. Momma and daddy swan came over to them and started pounding on the water again, they were trying to get at the turtle that killed their baby. The baby was alive and then quickly plopped to the ground and didn't move again. I can only assume this is what happened to the other baby swans. Fucking Murderous Turtle!!

My husband wanted to shoot the turtle, but how do you shoot a turtle?

I can't blame the turtle(s) entirely. My pond has been drained because they are fixing the dam. The swans only have a small swimming area and there a ton of turtles who are competing for this small space.Plus it is so easy for the turtles to get to the swans now. But the babies are so small a defenseless. Who am I kidding?! I can totally blame the turtle(s).