A peculiar tradeThe 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.
1Notwithstanding, the breeding
and exportation of terrapins from the U.S.A. to other
countries are still legal and thriving.
The VictimsThe 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
surviveIf 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 disappearing
4. 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
exportersTo 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 slaughterThe 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 natureHatchlings 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 hatchlingsAfter 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
dormancyIf 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 homeIn 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.
8The possible resumption of the US domestic
tradeThe 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 themIt 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 Click to know
What You Can
DoSources
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
