Conference turns spotlight on Taiwan’s turtles - via Herp Digest

07/02/2013, Taiwan Today --Taipei Zoo hosted July 2 the Turtle Conservation in Action Conference 2013, a major international event focusing on global efforts to protect endangered species such as the endemic yellow-margined box and Asian yellow pond turtles.

The location of the meeting was particularly pertinent as the ROC capital is host to the island’s largest and most stable population of the two species, in the Feitsui Reservoir catchment area, Taipei City Government announced.

“Conservation of turtle species in Asia has long been a major global issue,” said Liou Ming-lone, commissioner of the Taipei Feitsui Reservoir Administration. “The high economic value and easy transport of wild turtles means they are in unprecedented danger throughout South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, including Taiwan.

“This is especially true of the yellow-margined box and Asian yellow pond turtles. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has placed them on its red list of endangered species, and they are also covered by the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.”

Turtle conservation experts visited the reservoir on the eve of the conference to examine efforts to preserve the endangered turtles. The group included Peter Paul van Dijk, the chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group, and Sung Yik Hei, the head of conservation at Hong Kong’s Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden.

Conservation measures taken by the TFRA over the past 20 years have yielded concrete results, Liu said. Since 1996, more than 400 different individuals of the two endangered species had been recorded in the reservoir area, making them the island’s largest and stable population, according to a survey conducted by Chen Tien-hsi, professor of the Institute of Wildlife Conservation at Taiwan’s National Pingtung University of Science and Technology.

TFRA has already requested the Forestry Bureau under the Council of Agriculture to upgrade the protection status of the reservoir’s catchment area, so as to provide the wild species with an undisturbed habitat, Liu said. (SDH)