For most of the year, Illinois residents rarely think about snapping turtles.
Then one day in late spring, traffic suddenly slows on a quiet suburban street because a large turtle is crossing the pavement. A driver outside Peoria notices what looks like a small rock moving across a county road. Someone near Chicago spots a massive turtle making its way across a parking lot beside a retention pond and wonders how such an animal ended up there in the first place.
Within a few weeks, the sightings seem to spread everywhere…