TUCSON, AZ—) TUCSON, Ariz.— Conservation and health groups are seeking to end unsustainable commercial harvest of freshwater turtles in four southern states and to stop the export of contaminated turtles to international food markets. The Center for Biological Diversity today filed emergency petitions with the states of Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Texas to ban commercial turtle harvesting in public and private waters, to prevent further population declines of native southern turtle populations, and to protect public health. Turtles collected in these states and sold as food are often contaminated with mercury, PCBs, and pesticides.

Wildlife exporters and dealers are commercially harvesting massive and unsustainable numbers of wild freshwater turtles from Oklahoma, Florida, and Georgia, the few southern states that continue to allow unlimited and unregulated take of turtles. Herpetologists have reported drastic reductions in numbers and even the disappearance of many southern map turtle species in Georgia and Florida, especially in the panhandle. Recent surveys by Oklahoma State University show depletions and extinction of freshwater turtles in many Oklahoma streams, and commercial turtle buyers in Oklahoma reported purchasing almost 750,000 wild-caught turtles from 1994 to 1999. Over a quarter million wild-caught adult turtles captured in Texas were exported from Dallas Fort Worth Airport to Asia for human consumption from 2002 to 2005.

“Unregulated commercial trappers are capturing appalling numbers of freshwater turtles in southern states, including rare map turtle species that are so depleted they may need protection under the Endangered Species Act,“ said Jeff Miller, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. ”�Collectors could legally harvest every non-protected turtle that exists in the wild under the inadequate regulations that currently exist in Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma. These turtles are an important part of aquatic ecosystems and should not be allowed to be wiped out.”�

Most wild turtles harvested in the southern United States are exported to supply food markets in Asia, primarily China, which has depleted or driven most of its native freshwater turtles to extinction in the wild. Numerous southeastern turtles are sold to Asian seafood markets in the United States as well. Many of these turtles are harvested from streams under state and federal fish advisories and bans that caution against and prohibit human consumption, due to aquatic contaminants that are carcinogenic or harmful to humans such as DDT, PCBs, pesticides, mercury and other heavy metals. Turtles live longer and bioaccumulate considerably greater amounts of aquatic contaminants than fish.

“Hundreds of thousands of wild-caught turtles are sold locally as food or exported to international food markets from southern states each year, many contaminated with dangerous levels of mercury, PCBs, and pesticides,”� said Miller.

Because freshwater turtles are long lived (some may reach 150 years of age), breed late in life, and have low reproductive and survival rates, they are highly sensitive to over-harvest. Removal of just two adult turtles from a wild population could halve that population in as few as 50 years. Commercial collecting of wild turtles intensifies the effects of water pollution, road mortality, incidental take from fishery devices, and habitat loss; scientists warn that freshwater turtles can not sustain any significant level of harvest from the wild without leading to population crashes.

Also signing onto today’s petition are the St. John’s Riverkeeper (FL), Satilla Riverkeeper (GA), Altamaha Riverkeeper (GA), Oklahoma Chapter of the Sierra Club, Lone Star and Chapter of the Sierra Club (TX), Pineywoods Group of the Sierra Club (TX), and the Center for Food Safety.

More information can be found at: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/southern_freshwater_turtles/index.html.

Contact Info: Contact: Jeff Miller, Center for Biological Diversity, (510) 499-9185 Christopher Jones, petition co-author, (936) 615-3740

Website : Center for Biological Diversity