Friday 8-3-12 Ride on the Hennepin Feeder Canal

This morning we rode south intending to ride our 20 mile round trip, at the Rte 40 underpass we found it to be under several inches of water and as a result we crossed over Rte 40 to get to the other side, the DNR Hennepin Canal told me they were "In an effort to hopefully prevent a fish kill in the Hennepin Canal, we have opened the feed gates to let more water through to increase water circulation to minimize fish kills due to low oxygenation.  The increase in water flow will also help to somewhat help flush vegetation through some of the culverts." I knew this would result in an increased water level at Star Road underpass and it was flooded too much to allow us to safely pass here, so we turned around and were satisfied with a 19.5 mile ride. On the return I stopped just north of Ridge Road to check out a couple of Soft Shell Turtles laying on their backs on the path. Someone had caught them and decided to torture them by placing them on their backs in the sun, one was about 12 " plus across his shell the other was about 16" across, I flipped them both over expecting them to both be dead, but the smaller one moved a little, I poked him and he used some reserve strength to propel itself into the canal, the other I am sure was dead, but I pushed it into the water just in case. What a waste, if they wanted to kill them they should have taken them for their meat.