The Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the Bronx Zoo and
other city zoos, committed this week to launch an worldwide effort to revive
turtle and tortoise species on the verge of extinction—some with global
populations in the single digits.
By Will James, April 10, 2012
The Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the Bronx Zoo and
other city zoos, committed this week to launch an worldwide effort to revive
turtle and tortoise species on the verge of extinction—some with global
populations in the single digits.
The vision is for freshwater turtles and tortoises bred in New
York to repopulate habitats across the world. It harks back to the society's
first notable victory, when it shipped 15 American bison from New York to
Oklahoma to reside in the Great Plains more than a century ago.
Now, the New York-based society—a network of 4,000 zookeepers,
scientists, field conservationists and veterinarians in 65 countries—is
preparing to mobilize all of its branches for the turtle effort.
"We're in a position to do something about this because of
the expertise across the organization," said Dr. Elizabeth Bennett, the
society's vice president for species conservation. "And the fact that
we've got these zoos in New York where we can do this breeding."
The Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs several city zoos,
is working to breed freshwater turtles and tortoises in New York in the hopes
of repopulating global habitats. The McCord's Box Turtle, held by a zookeeper
at the Bronx Zoo, is native to China.
Much remains to be decided, but one likely candidate is the Roti
Island Snake-Necked Turtle, a freshwater species with a long neck that it wraps
around its body for protection. The Bronx Zoo has three of the Frisbee-sized
creatures, which are found almost exclusively on a small Indonesian island.
Fewer than 100 are left in the wild, scientists said, as hunting for the pet
trade and conversion of its native marshlands into rice fields has decimated
the species.
The Bronx Zoo is looking to obtain more to build up a population
with enough genetic diversity for safe breeding. Once in New York, the turtles
would be raised and bred in temperature-controlled tanks that simulate their
humid native climates.
Don Boyer, the society's curator of herpetology, said it is too
early to say just how many young turtles the zoos will have to produce.
"This is a big job," he said.
The organization is committed to saving about half of the
world's 25 most threatened turtle species but is still deciding which it is
best equipped to aggressively breed in the coming years. Early estimates put
the cost at about $200,000 per species.
It is also unclear when those species will be brought to the
society's New York facilities—the Bronx Zoo, the New York Aquarium, the Central
Park Zoo, the Prospect Park Zoo and the Queens Zoo.
For now, the Wildlife Conservation Society is breeding four
endangered turtle species—the Roti Island, Golden Coin, McCord's Box and
Yellow-Headed Box species—in the Asian countries where they are native. It soon
plans to begin acquiring rare turtles from other zoos in order to bolster its
collection of 400 turtles from 59 species.
The effort will take years. And experts say they are running out
of time.
Having thrived since the early days of the dinosaurs, turtles
are now facing an unprecedented crisis that has gone largely unnoticed by the
general public, conservationists say. Most of the threatened species have been
reduced to fewer than 1,000.
"You can't be in our profession, you can't have our
knowledge and expertise and not do something," said Jim Breheny, director
of the Bronx Zoo. "We're ethically obligated to do something."
Some species may be impossible to save. The Abingdon Island
Tortoise, once found on the Galápagos Islands, has one survivor, a male named
Lonesome George. The Red River Giant Softshell Turtle, native to China and
Vietnam, is down to four.
While much turtle habitat is still intact, the animals have been
hunted to the brink across the world. For the last two decades or so, turtles
have been plucked by the ton out of the rivers, swamps, forests and fields of
Southeast Asia, where most turtle species live.
Many are bagged and shipped off to feed a growing demand in
China, where they are boiled in soups or ground into jelly believed to have
medicinal qualities. Thought to be good luck, they are also sold as pets to a
new Chinese middle class.
In 2000, 25 tons of turtles per week were being shipped from
Sumatra to China, according to Dr. Bennett. By 2003, that dropped to seven tons
since the island was running out of turtles. China began importing them from as
far away as Brazil.
Leaders of the effort see reasons for hope, saying turtles are
uniquely well-suited for a mass breeding program. Many turtles live even longer
than humans—some have been known to live 160 years—and breed throughout their
lives. Compared with other endangered species, like tigers or elephants, they
are small and easy to care for.
"I really think that in a relatively short period of
time—five to 10 years—we can really be in a much better place with turtles than
we are now," Mr. Breheny said. "And the flip side is if we don't
start doing something now, we're going to lose some of these. If we don't act
now, it's over."
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