Life is full of tough choices. It speaks well of you that you question yourself. Come on down off the ledge, bro.

I wasn't there. I'm more familiar with turtles and probably would not have made the same choice because I would have assessed the risk as much smaller. I'm also a bit darwinian and would have figured that while it was unlikely the cats would have messed with the turtle, if they were stupid enough to have done so, well....

Having said that, I killed a baby snake a number of years ago because it may have been a copperhead, but I didn't have enough knowledge to know. It was on my back steps. I had a 4 year old child. I don't know snakes. We had black racers all around, even living in the crawl space, but they were eating the voles that were decimating my garden, and I like black snakes, even when we surprise each other and scramble wildly in opposite directions. If a snake is black, I know it is some species black snake. If a snake is green, I know it is a green snake. If the snake looks like a humongous earthworm, only more snakey, I know it is a worm snake. Otherwise, I don't know.

I live in copperhead country. My father-in-law nearly lost his foot from the necrosis caused by a copperhead bite. A good friend lost three fingers and a portion of his hand from a copperhead bite.

This was a baby snake, and patterned. I popped a clear plastic container over it and went to fetch a neighbor to ask if she thought it might be a copperhead. She opined it was a baby copperhead. She didn't know a lot about snakes, but she knew more than I did. I killed it, and put it in the freezer to save until a good friend who is a naturalist and keeps snakes for educational displays and school workshops came by for supper. Turns out it was a baby black racer. They are apparently patterned in infancy. It still bothers me that I killed it. But I would do the same again if I were unable to identify the snake and had any concern it could be a copperhead.