A strange trade
The internal trade of terrapin hatchlings was banned within the United States of America in 1975.

This happened because terrapins can carry salmonella bacteria. The estimates reported that, before the 1975 ban, handling terrapins caused 14 to 17% of the 300,000 cases of salmonellosis every year, in the U.S.A.¹

Notwithstanding, the breeding and exportation of terrapins from the U.S.A. to other countries are still legal and thriving.

The Victims
The turtles which are most commonly exported from the U.S.A. are two subspecies of Trachemys scripta: Trachemys scripta elegans (the "Red-Eared" slider turtle, whose importation has been prohibited in Europe since 1997) and Trachemys scripta scripta (importation to Europe still legal).

Domestic terrapins lead miserable lives all of the times. Whilst, in the wild, they swim for miles every day, in captivity they are kept in small ponds, if not in aquariums. They rarely receive the same kind of varied food they get in the wild. Not to mention sunlight, that is essential for their health, and can be replaced - partially, though - only by very expensive lamps, that not all "owners" grant terrapins.²

Thus, no more than 20% of the turtles that are bred for exportation survive their first year of life, whereas, in the wild, a terrapin's life reaches 30 years.³

Those who survive


If terrapins survive the stress of trasportation and inadequate keeping, their size soon becomes a problem for their "owners". Female turtles, in particular, can get as long as 12 inches. Many of them, therefore, are thrown away. Some of them, the strongest ones, survive in the ponds they were so lucky to be thrown into.

If terrapins are thrown in the wild and don't die immediately after, they pose a threat to local wildlife. In Europe, so many of them have been thrown in the wild, that local species of turtle, as Emys orbicularis or Mauremys leprosa, are disappearing⁴. Many countries, both European and non-European (Germany, Italy, Australia, Israel, South Africa, for istance) banned the importation of red-eared turtles in recent years. Though, 30 states still trade it.

The artifices of exporters
To avoid the bans on red-eared turles, U.S.A. farms have begun breeding slightly different races of terrapins, in particular the Trachemys Scripta Scripta, which has no red ears but is just as unlucky.⁵ The importation of Trachemys Scripta Scripta is, at the moment, perfectly legal in Italy.

Estimates of a slaughter
The Trust for the Protection of Reptiles estimates exports from the U.S.A. of more than 5 million hatchlings a year to become pets. Some more 800,000 adults, both bred in the farms or caught in the wild, are shipped to Far Eastern countries for culinary purposes.⁶

The damage in nature
Hatchlings derive from breeding adults that are, legally, taken from the wild in the U.S.A. Every year, thousands of adult terrapins (estimates report 100,000 to perhaps 300,000) are caught for this reason.⁷

The conditions of hatchlings
After their birth, hatchlings are then packed, in hundreds, in small boxes, and are shipped abroad. They may be left without food and water for months. During shipment, many of them die or get diseases. Turtles have a slow metabolism, this is why the diseases they get in the farms or during shipment get visible only after weeks or months. At least 80% of them die within a year.³

An improper dormancy
If the market is quiet and does not need the terrapins that are born, hatchlings are not immediately shipped. They are moved to cooling rooms where they are maintained at a temperature of about 50-60°F.

This way, their metabolic rate slows down. Hatchlings can be kept in this catatonic condition for a whole year. In these cooling rooms, hatchlings inhale very noxious gases, such as ammonia.⁸

Those who remain at home
In the meantime, food for breeding adults is reduced, since terrapins lay more eggs if well fed. Cannibalism then occurs in the artificial ponds of the U.S.A. farms, which are located mostly in Lousiana (where are 25 of the total 50 U.S. farms.)⁹

If the market asks for new terrapins, shipment of the "frozen" ones occurs. 400-500 baby terrapins are packaged in a box measuring 32 cm x 32 cm x 6.5 cm. Many of them are already ill, or become ill during shipment.⁸

The possible resumption of the US domestic trade
The National Turtle Farmers and Shippers Association (NTFSA) would like the ban on U.S.A. domestic trade lifted. They also proposed that, in order to prevent the transmission of salmonellosis, the terrapins may be kept in "sterile plastic bubbles" until they were sold, or died in shops. ⁸

This would mean a demand for more than 10 million new hatchlings every year. It would help the 50-100 farms that closed because of the 1975 domestic trade ban. But it would triple the need for adult breeders, and their hunt in the wildlife.

The drain on wild populations, if the ban on domestic trade were lifted, would be enormous. The local people in the Southern U.S.A. affirm that only one tenth of the animals are seen than previously occurred.⁸

Attempt to save them
It has been tried many times to enumerate the Trachemys Scripta Elegans into the "I" appendice of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) treaty, in order to ban its trade, but - in spite of its sometimes seemingly favourable opinion - ths U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) never accepted this solution.²

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Sources

¹Clifford Warwick, "Cold-Blooded Conspiracy", BBC Wildlife magazine, March 2001
²Clifford Warwick, "Tender Age Moribund Endangered TERRAPINS"
³Alex Rowe, "Today Terrapins, Tomorrow the World", BBC Wildlife Magazine, April 1993
⁴In "Dall'America Senza Ritorno (One way from America)", Oasis magazine, Sept 2000
⁵Giuliano Sadar - "La Tratta delle Tartarughe (The Trade of the Turtles), "il manifesto", Italian daily newspaper, February 28th, 2001
⁶Clifford Warwick and Catrina Steedman, "Report on the use of red-ear turtles as a food source utilized by man". Peoples trust for Endangered Species, Godalming, UK, 1988
⁷Clifford Warwick, "The Animal Dealers. Evidence of Abuse of Animals in the Commercial Trade, 1952-1997"
⁸Clifford Warwick, "The Trade in Red-Eared Terrapins", Animals International V/16 (1985)
⁹Clifford Warwick, "Terrapin Farming in the U.S.", RSPCA Today, Summer 1985