I have written this article in response to a letter in the April 1993 issue of the Tortuga Gazette. In the letter, Scott Solar assures a previous correspondent that commercially collected Gulf Coast box turtles which had puncture-like injuries were the likely victims of botfly infestation, and were not collected by "hooking". I do not dispute this contention. However, Mr. Solar goes on to say that "any collecting method that injures an animal and thereby compromises its survivability would not be acceptable to the collector, the end user at the pet store, or anybody in between." I believe that anyone familiar with the trade in wild-caught turtles would have a serious problem with this statement. Most collectors probably would not purposefully injure the turtles, but the simple act of removing them from their habitats and transporting them is inevitably stressful and inherently harmful. Some collectors and wholesalers may actually care about the welfare of the animals, but this is far from universal, and the expediency to make a profit appears frequently to override the best of intentions.
I have personally witnessed numerous commercial shipments of turtles, observed holding pens, and visited pet wholesalers and retail dealers. In addition, I have spoken to many people involved in, or with direct knowledge, of the reptile trade.
Turtles collected from the wild are typically piled into boxes, burlap sacks, or wooden crates, and transported in car trunks or vans to holding areas. There they may be held in crowded pens or livestock tanks, often without access to clean water. Shipment to wholesalers and retailers often involve another trip packed into boxes and crates. As many CTTC members already know, when the turtles finally arrive at the pet shop they may again be crowded into small tanks, fed a minimal diet, and basically kept under inadequate conditions.
When a normally solitary, sun-loving creature is suddenly removed from the habitat it has perhaps occupied for decades, is crammed into a box with other turtles, exposed to extremes of heat or cold, and kept under generally unsanitary conditions for days or weeks, it is obviously under extreme stress. Disease is often the result. A former reptile dealer told me that he believed the mortality rate for wild-caught box turtles was, at times, as high as 50% between their collection and arrival at the retailer, and was rarely less than 20%. Of those that arrived alive, many were dehydrated and suffering from pneumonia, eye infections, and nutritional deficiencies.
Few people buying turtles in pet shops are aware that the animals are already stressed, diseased and probably doomed. In my position as a herpetologist at a university museum, I am often consulted by people who have recently bought pet turtles and discovered that the creatures were already sick when purchased. They are rarely informed of proper husbandry methods by dealers. By the time I see them, the turtles are often beyond hope, or are salvageable only by aggressive (and expensive) veterinary intervention. I have heard estimates that perhaps as few as one in a hundred wild-caught box turtles that enters the pet trade is alive after two years. Nothing I have seen would cause me to think that this figure is an exaggeration. Is this any way to treat an animal that could live fifty, eighty, or even an hundred years if left in its habitat? (And if you believe that collectors only take turtles from threatened habitats, or the middle of highways, I can probably make you a great deal on a bridge in Brooklyn!)
But this is far more than an animal welfare issue. The use of wildlife resources, whether for sport, meat, furs, or pets, has been based on the assumption that the harvest must be sustainable. That is, that humans are acting as natural predators, taking only from a population surplus, and that the wildlife in question will remain stable over time. Is this assumption valid when we consider the mass collection of turtles? A growing body of data from long-term scientific field studies clearly shows that it is not. Compared to almost all other species of hunted wildlife, turtles are slow-maturing animals with very high egg and hatchling mortality balanced in nature by the longevity of the small percentage of animals reaching adulthood. Studies show that box turtles must have a comparatively high annual survivorship to compensate for the normally low annual recruitment of new breeding animals into the population. In good habitat box turtles can build up high populations over time, but any factor that suddenly increases the loss of mature individuals will cause the population to decline. It is thus unlikely that box turtles anywhere have harvestable population surpluses.
Along with box turtles, certain other species are very vulnerable to mass exploitation and have been severely damaged by pet trade collecting. Most true tortoises share these population characteristics, as do Blanding's turtles and turtles in the genus Clemmys. I am involved in a long term study of the wood turtle (C. insculpta) in Michigan, and am in contact with fellow Clemmys researchers in the U.S. and Canada. Many of us know of existing habitats that have been nearly or totally emptied of wood, spotted, or bog turtles by collectors. I can assure readers from personal experience that horror tales of marked long-term study populations being collected out almost overnight are true. The fact that these turtles were usually protected by state laws did not seem to discourage the poachers.
There have been reports of using a long hypodermic needle to pierce the eggs through the body wall in front of the rear legs. The idea is that it would allow the eggs to collapse to facilitate their passage through the pelvic canal. This will work, but there are disadvantages. Firstly, it destroys the eggs. Secondly, if any of the egg yolk leaks out into the body cavity there is the potential for egg yoke peritonitis. Thirdly, if the procedure is not performed in a sterile fashion the actual insertion of the needle may cause internal infection within the animal.
The mass exploitation of wild turtle populations is demonstrably non-sustainable. It is true that habitat loss is a major threat to all wildlife, including turtles. But the growing phenomenon of depleted and empty habitats shows that simple exploitation is still a major threat. There are now reports that turtle species formerly thought to be fairly safe, such as sliders and cooters, are being trapped and shipped overseas in large numbers for use a human food. Do we really want our native turtle populations steadily moved from the wild and into the pet shops and food markets of the world?
There are many things that turtle hobbyists and amateur herpetologists can do to preserve wild populations. Refuse to buy wild-caught specimens; insist on captive-bred stock. Several species can easily be bred in captivity. Remember, that if you buy a turtle to "save" it from death in a pet shop, you are only encouraging the dealers to buy additional stock. Write letters to encourage all states to ban the commercial exploitation of native wildlife. Join efforts by local and national conservation groups to preserve natural habitats. People who really care about turtles must be willing to work, and perhaps sacrifice their own desires, to assure a future for these animals in the wild.
Dr. Harding is a Museum Specialist at the Michigan State University Museum. He is well known for his extensive and fascinating field studies of box and wood turtles in the wild.
Originally published in the Tortuga Gazette 29(6): 9-10, June 1993