Lakeland High School teacher doubles as 'dinosaur' hunter

The pond near Mohegan Lake in northern Westchester was a new one to John Walker, though he'd grown up just a couple of miles away in Shrub Oak. "An unfamiliar pond offers all kinds of hazards," said the 45- year-old technology teacher at Copper Beech Middle School "You don't know what the bottom is like, where stumps and other objects lie, and when you might step into a 4- or 5-foot hole.'' These are some of the dangers of turtling, as Walker refers to his sport. The rewards, he says, are plenty. "You are battling something in its element, and you are not in yours," the Hopewell Junction resident said. "You get pumped. The adrenaline is really flowing."