IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature

Freshwater turtles are heavily exploited for food, and in some cases medicine, particularly in Southeast Asia and China, were harvesting levels are unsustainably high and include protected and trade regulated species. Many species are now threatened with extinction because of this unsustainable trade. In the face of this rapid decline and potential spread of this practice to neighbouring countries, the SSC’s Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group helped create the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) in 2001. This IUCN/SSC Task Force aims to build a network of linked captive management and breeding programmes known as Assurance Colonies. It has forged new and unique partnerships with zoos and aquariums, universities, private breeders and serious hobbyists to help it achieve this task.

The primary goal of these Assurance Colonies will be to guarantee the survival of species which are currently threatened in the wild and to maximize future options for the recovery of threatened wild populations, through captive-breeding and re-introduction programmes. These collections also act as valuable “safe-houses” for otherwise doomed, illegally traded animals that have been confiscated by customs officials, particularly from the food and medicinal markets in Asia. Increasingly, the TSA is becoming recognized as a global force for turtle conservation, and is now widely known as the group to call when there is a turtle crisis!

Building on its early successes, today the TSA envisions a broad perspective, one where it is engaged whenever the conservation strategy includes a captive component. Whether it is a range country headstarting program, assurance colony facility or rescue center, the TSA has a tremendous wealth of resources to impart. And though the need to develop sustainable captive populations of endangered chelonians (turtles) is its driving force, the TSA has become much more than a captive breeding organization.

Recognizing the battle to save turtle populations will be won or lost in the regions where they occur, the TSA has embraced the need to expand the global network to include its range country counterparts. Its niche is supporting in situ programs that involve a captive component, and its strategy is to identify existing facilities and organizations that already have developed some basic infrastructure for turtle conservation.

Building the capacity for saving turtles in Asia is essential if it is to be successful. Through training workshops and on-site visits, through the provision of materials and technical expertise, and through logistical and financial support, the TSA is firmly committed to empowering workers in range states to take effective action for turtle conservation. Training is the key ingredient, and currently the TSA is organizing and conducting a series of turtle husbandry and veterinary care workshops in Asia, funded by various sponsors.

Visit the Turtle Survival Alliance's website.
visit the IUCN/SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group Turtle website

Doug arrived in Viet Nam in 1996, initially to manage a protected area conservation project at Cuc Phuong National Park. Not long after he began working in the area, he was called in by the authorities to help identify protected species confiscated by authorities in a major wildlife trade bust.

“People were concerned about the all the cuddly, fluffy and exotic animals” Doug remembers, “gibbons, rare pheasants and the like, but nobody was in the least bit concerned about what happened to the two tons of freshwater turtles stacked up in crates”.

It was this incident that prompted his involvement in turtle conservation and led to the establishment of a turtle conservation component to the Cuc Phuong Conservation Project. This involves training rangers, undertaking studies of the turtles’ life history to identify conservation priorities (which species are more robust, which ones are the most sensitive) and the setting up of a Turtle Conservation Centre to care for turtles seized from traders.

This initiative has now spread to the whole of Viet Nam, with trained rangers in 34 of the country’s 62 provinces.

Turtle conservation issues now have a much higher profile with the general Vietnamese public as well, thanks to Doug’s work with the local media and several well publicized events.

“National wildlife protection authorities now have turtle conservation firmly on their radar screen” says Doug, “which wasn’t the case 10 years ago, when they were afforded the same status as shellfish!”

Illegal trade is the greatest threat to the country’s freshwater turtles and 21 of Viet Nam’s 23 turtle species are listed on Appendix 2 of CITES (Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). This means that they may become threatened with extinction unless trade is closely controlled. Most hard-shelled turtles are collected and exported to China because of their high market value there, mainly for traditional medicine, but sometimes for food. Only the soft-shelled turtle is collected and commonly eaten locally.

Through better law enforcement, the turtle trade is now better documented and monitored and conservationists have a much better idea of what’s going on. The key to effective turtle conservation is enforcement in the local area, before the turtles have been transported hundreds of miles from their native habitats, and the establishment of a network of local turtle conservationists.

For the past two years, Doug has been the Asian Turtle coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society and Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, covering seven Asian countries, helping to develop projects and encourage local action to protect turtles.

« Establishing a generation of local young turtle enthusiasts is the most effective way to ensure turtle conservation over the longer term” says Doug.

“This is happening in Viet Nam and also Cambodia and is starting in Burma (Myanmar) too” he observes, “and I am confident that this will soon be the case in Thailand and Malaysia where interest in turtles is currently confined mainly to the scientific community” he added.

Reflecting on his life-long interest in herpetology (study of reptiles), Dr Hugh Quinn remembers how it all began. At the time he was about eight years old, living in a small mid-western town, he couldn’t believe it when his mother agreed to let him dig a big hole in their back yard. His father said he could have the concrete blocks from a wall they were tearing-down and he was also able to get a few bags of cement, some sand and a little gravel. Everything fell into place.

“I made my own in-ground, aquatic turtle enclosure, complete with drain”, he recalls and years later, the best of all possible worlds materialized, “I actually got jobs that allowed me to work with reptiles and amphibians, both in captivity and in the field. I even got paid!” he smiles.

Hugh is now General Curator at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and has been actively engaged in global turtle conservation efforts for many years, with particular emphasis on Southeast Asia and the United States. His involvement includes the recent coordination of two turtle husbandry and veterinary care workshops in Asia and he serves on the IUCN/SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group Steering Committee, the Turtle Survival Alliance – North America Steering Committee, the Turtle Conservation Fund Executive Committee, and chairs the American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s Chelonian Advisory Group.

In North America, Hugh is involved in research into the ecology of Blanding’s turtle, which has its stronghold in the Great Lakes region but is believed to be declining in many areas, apparently because of poor breeding success and an aging population has been observed in several states ( Illinois and Wisconsin). This work includes a head-start/release programme, whereby young turtles are hatched and reared in captivity and then released when they are large enough to avoid large-scale predation losses.

Hugh sums-up his thoughts on the opportunities his zoo and academic career have provided as “Life is good!”

With more than 30 years of experience in breeding turtles, Elmar Meier is one of the world’s leading experts on the captive breeding of turtles. Being aware of the massive consumption of millions of turtles in Asia for medicine and food and the increa­sing destruction of their natural habitat, he anticipated the population crash in many species. In the 1980s and early 1990s, he established a specialized private collection and dedicated his spare-time to develop a method for successful breeding of Critically Endangered species which are aggressive and susceptible to stress.

“I devised a method of reducing social stress by keeping individuals singly and introducing sexual partners only for mating, and have achieved some first-ever European and world breeding successes” Elmar proudly recalls.

So far, Elmar has been able to breed 24 different turtle species regularly, three of which have already been bred in the second generation.

After this successful development of the breeding method, Elmar felt obliged to establish a breeding programme on a larger scale, integrating both private reptile specialists (who have the knowledge to breed many difficult species and can provide valuable founder individuals for breeding programmes) and zoological institutions (which provide the necessary background and organisational structures).

Initial plans for such a broader conservation programme seemed to be feasible when Münster Zoo and the Zoological Society for the Conservation of Species and Populations (ZGAP) became interested in the project. An agreement has been reached whereby Elmar Meier makes his private animal stock availabe to the conservation programme and promises to continue taking care of turtles and managing the breeding programme in his spare time. Thus, the International Centre for Turtle Conservation at Münster Zoo, Germany, was initiated and operations started in October 2003.

The first offspring have been transferred to Rotterdam Zoo, Chester Zoo and the Zoological Society of London, and further individuals will be distributed to other facilities as assurance colonies.

“The intitiative can claim to be unique and significant for the survival of several Asian turtle species,” says Elmar, “including the red-necked pond turtle (EN), the yellow-necked box turtle (CR), the Indochina box turtle (CR), the Arakan forest turtle (EN), and the four-eyed turtle (EN) amongst others.”

In addition to his work on the maintenance, breeding and conservation of turtles, which includes several publications, Elmar is also responsible for a broadly planned landscape approach to nature conservation project, with the European tree-frog as a flagship species for the preservation of threatened species in the Westphalian farmed landscape.

"Quite often I am asked why I like turtles and why I am involved in turtle conservation”, says Henk Zwartepoorte, “and for me there is only one answer: when a group of animals has been living on earth for millions of years and faces extinction within several decades, action has to be taken immediately”.

Henk has developed a love and respect for all living things; be it animals, plants or people, from an early age, thanks to his late grandmother, and when the opportunity arose to work at Rotterdam Zoo in 1978, a lifetime’s ambition was fulfilled.

After one year at the bird section Henke switched to reptiles, and he soon realised that his future work would be reptiles and reptiles alone.

“I got hooked on reptiles more and more” recalls Henk “and I became increasingly interested in turtles and their struggle for survival in particular” he added.

During the 1990s, when the critical status of wild turtle populations became more obvious to the world, Henk played a vital role in the establishment of breeding groups of threatened species at Rotterdam Zoo. In the early 1990s, he developed private studbooks / breeding-programmes for reptiles within the Dutch Turtle and Tortoise Society (NSV), and the European Studbook Foundation (ESF) was officially launched a couple of years later.

After attending a workshop in Orlando/Florida in September 2000 he was invited to attend the workshop at the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas/USA in January 2001 on the critical situation of turtles and their conservation. This workshop was organized by the IUCN SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group; the Turtle Survival Alliance was born and shortly after that he was offered the position of TSA-Europe Chair.

Today, European zoos have developed a policy and strategy to improve the management of their individual reptile and amphibian collections on one hand, whilst at the same time improving co-operation between European zoos on the other. Regional Collection Plans (RCP) drafted by the Amphibian and Reptile Taxon Advisory Group (ARTAG), have been accepted as vital tools for the correct management of species for conservation in zoos. Henk now devotes his time equally between turtle conservation and other reptile work at Rotterdam Zoo and is the European Endangered Species coordinator for the Egyptian tortoise.

The future for turtles in the wild still looks very uncertain and current “in the wild” and captive turtle conservation programmes are steps in the right direction”, says Henk. “With the help of the TSA’s assurance colonies, we can build up the Ark and together with habitat and species protection programmes in the field and the development of reintroduction programmes, we can and must create a brighter future for turtles. I am convinced we can realize this” he concludes.

A qualified and experienced vet, Sam Rivera did his training at the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine with an emphasis on avian and reptile medicine. Currently in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia ( USA), Sam cares mainly for reptiles, birds, and a wide variety of wildlife, including those in Atlanta Zoo.

Sam joined the Turtle Survival Alliance in 2001, as a result of his special interest in chelonian (turtle) medicine. As a veterinarian and member of the Turtle Survival Alliance, Sam has cared for a large variety of wild caught turtles and tortoises.

“There is no better feeling than attending to a very sick turtle and see the animal recover and live a long healthy life” says Sam, “even though the work is hard and time consuming”.

His primary interests in the care of turtles include surgery and the application of ultrasonography as a diagnostic tool. Recently, he has expanded his interests to turtle conservation medicine in the field.

As a result of his passion for turtles, Sam has recently begun working with wild green sea turtles affected with fibropapillomatosis near Culebra, Puerto Rico. The project involves the health assessment of healthy and sick wild populations. He and a team of veterinarians and biologists are trying to identify factors that may predispose a specific population of green sea turtles to this devastating disease.