Collecting tortoises from the wild

[GBtortoises]

With the ongoing debate here and people being railed for asking about breeding Sulcata tortoises I am curious about opinions and perceptions of the still common practice of collecting thousands of tortoises from the wild each and every year to supplyour hobby.

I realize that Sulcata's are everywhere nowadays. But if you take a look on Kingsnake and other sites you'll see that Redfoots are as common if not more so. Russian tortoises have become the Red-Eared Sliders of the tortoise side, especially now that we have pet chain mega stores everywhere.

Which leads me to these questions: Why is no one up in arms about adult Redfoots and other species still being collected?

Or that thousands and thousands of young adult Russian tortoises are being collected and shipped here leaving a tremendous gap in their generations?

Why only the fixation on Sulcata?

 

[Shelly]

You bring up an important issue. I STRONGLY oppose ANY wild animal being trapped to feed the pet industry.

 

[Yvonne G]

I can only speak from personal experience. After red ear sliders, male sulcatas are the number one most turned in tortoise to me here at the rescue. Plus, sulcatas can no longer be collected in the wild, can they? I get maybe two Russians a year and other than the 5 red foots that came to me last year all from the same person, I never get redfoots.

The only reason I don't like to see your average tortoise-keeper backyard breeding sulcatas is because those are usually the ones that end up in the rescues several years later.

 

[dmmj]

I do not have a problem as long as people do it responsibly, now of course most people do not do it responsibly, so then of course I have a problem when they collect hundreds so a few can survive to make it into the pet trade. Without wild collecting none of us would have out torts since they all came from wild collecting, I just wish they would do it more (like I said) responsibly.

 

[GBtortoises]

My point with Redfoots is that there are now many, many sources for captive born animals, yet there is still a constant flow of wild caught adults coming in all the time.

Russians tortoises are up for "adoption" all over craigslist and can be seen in every PetsMart and Petco at any given time. Usually in less than ideal conditions.

I absolutely understand the plight of Sulcatas in captivity. But I also don't feel that tortoise people, especially people on this site should be jumping all over someone who breeds Sulcatas or asks about breeding Sulcatas simply because that person thinks it's wrong. You don't educate someone by immediately jumping down their throat, telling them that they are wrong and they have a bad idea. That either turns them away completely or makes them combative. And maybe, just maybe, everyone doesn't (and shouldn't) think alike.

As far as wild caught animals in general, yes it's true that none of us[i/] would have what we have if not for animals being collected and imported. But, today so many species are being bred in captivity and all of them on a more frequent basis. That was not the case 30 years ago, 20 years ago or even 10 years ago.
The demand was there for the animals regardless of where the supply came from. Today many captive borns have become available of several species and the list continues to grow.

The argument can be made that wild caught adults lead to getting captive born babies quicker as opposed to raising a captive born animal to breeding age and size. But also realize that over the years thousands and thousands of those wild caught tortoises never lived long enough in captivity to breed again. At what point do we put aside our own impatience and greed and consider what we're doing to the animals in their natural environment?

As much as I want to believe that large quantity collecting can be done responsibly, I don't think it will realistically ever happen. Generally speaking, the people that do the collecting are worlds away from us, not just geographically, but very often financially and socially too. The people collecting are trying to make a living and feed their families the best ways they know how. Then there's buyers, importers, wholesalers and in some cases dealers and petshops in the middle before the animals ever get to us. With all those middlemen you can be sure the collector is getting pennies for each animal, which just means he has to be less discriminate about what and how many he collects to make his money. I would be willing to bet that none of them in the entire process care about anything more than the dollar. To them it's like apples in a tree, pick them until the tree is bare and then move on to another tree.

 

[TylerStewart]

I absolutely understand the plight of Sulcatas in captivity. But I also don't feel that tortoise people, especially people on this site should be jumping all over someone who breeds Sulcatas or asks about breeding Sulcatas simply because that person thinks it's wrong. You don't educate someone by immediately jumping down their throat, telling them that they are wrong and they have a bad idea. That either turns them away completely or makes them combative. And maybe, just maybe, everyone doesn't (and shouldn't) think alike.

This is such the common mindset of this forum... At least, the most outspoken 4 or 6 members of the forum. Don't worry that 20,000+ Russians per year are imported (haven't checked the numbers in a while), or who knows how many redfoots, but the fact that 1% of the sulcatas might end up in a rescue is reason enough to kill the week telling someone not to breed them. It was brought up a few times in the last sulcata threads, but the fact that sulcatas are available cheaply is a huge reduction on the demand for wild caught animals of any species. Someone looking for a low cost tortoise has really a few options: captive bred sulcata, wild caught Russian (many of which die), wild caught hingeback (most of which die), etc. If sulcatas were gone from the face of the earth, it would just be the next species in line being "the most common tortoise in rescues."

Let me propose a new name for the forum:
"TortoiseForum.org - Ask questions, share answers, talk torts, just don't you dare breed sulcatas."

I'll design a new banner.

 

[Yvonne G]

Which leads me to these questions: Why is no one up in arms about adult Redfoots and other species still being collected?

Or that thousands and thousands of young adult Russian tortoises are being collected and shipped here leaving a tremendous gap in their generations?

Why only the fixation on Sulcata?

Probably because the Russians and Redfoots die before reaching the rescues and the sulcatas, being more hardy, don't.

 

[-EJ]

Most of the above mentioned tortoises are being very successfully farmed.

With the ongoing debate here and people being railed for asking about breeding Sulcata tortoises I am curious about opinions and perceptions of the still common practice of collecting thousands of tortoises from the wild each and every year to supplyour hobby.

I realize that Sulcata's are everywhere nowadays. But if you take a look on Kingsnake and other sites you'll see that Redfoots are as common if not more so. Russian tortoises have become the Red-Eared Sliders of the tortoise side, especially now that we have pet chain mega stores everywhere.

Which leads me to these questions: Why is no one up in arms about adult Redfoots and other species still being collected?

Or that thousands and thousands of young adult Russian tortoises are being collected and shipped here leaving a tremendous gap in their generations?

Why only the fixation on Sulcata?

 

[chadk]

Here in WA, I rarely see Sulcatas. A little more than redfoots, but still, very few.

But as noted above, all pet stores have Russians. And CL always has some RTs listed around here.

The local rescue I work with here only has RT's in foster care. Have not seen another tort other than RT. They have had a few boxies come through. I think they just refuse RES. Not sure though. They aslo work with a local guy who does tort and turtle rescue. I just checked his site and in their last newsletter, they had 1 sullie, 1 redfoot, 1 loe, and 3 russians looking for homes.

 

[Madkins007]

I would love to see a halt to imports of wild-caught pets while encouraging responsible, sustainable farming to replace collecting. Actually, I'd like to see this in foods as well.

 

[dmmj]

but you could not have responsible animal farming without Wild collecting in the first place, when do you say enough wild collection and just let the private people deal with it?

 

[Tom]

I was also very displeased by the response to the original post asking for help. Wasn't quite sure how to put it into words. It's my opinion that we should be encouraging responsibility through education, not brow-beating and dream-stomping. I understand the point of view of the rescue folks, but it seems like there ought to be a better way. The vast majority of the animal owning public I know does a great job of taking care of whatever species they own. It doesn't seem right to me to discourage captive breeding of a common, but wonderful, species because a very small percentage of people will not do the right thing.

Now, does this mean you guys aren't going to send me that half dozen females to put in with my males?! I've got plenty of room and food, I just can't take any males, since they'd fight with Scooter and Bert.

 

[Anfi]

The situation with russian tortoises (Testudo horsfieldii) looks catastrophic. Actually these tortoises don't live in Russia at all but they do live in some former-USSR countries like Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Governments of these countries don't care about tortoises at all, looks like they just don't need tortoises but need money instead. So they are ready to sell all of their tortoises.
Just look at the official CITES quota (www.cites.org) for Testudo horsfieldii

2009 Tajikistan 17000 wild-taken
2009 Uzbekistan 5000 eggs
2009 Uzbekistan 29000 live
2009 Uzbekistan 17000 live, ranched

And this is just official data for 2009 year.
Several years ago there were lots of adult and even old tortoises sold in every pet shop. But during the last years all I can see is sub-adults or juveniles. That means that there are no adults left in the wild!
I don't know what can actually stop the population decline now.
Local people in Kazakhstan etc. mostly (not all but mostly) don't care about tortoises as well: they collect tortoises to feed pigs and dogs or just crush tortoises for fun.
What's about Testudo horsfieldii in captivity they mostly die cause of unproper care or at least don't breed and don't produce any babies because people that buy them don't know anything about tortoise care. And at least 50% of keepers are children themselves.

 

[GBtortoises]

I don't think collecting and importing tortoises from the wild will ever go away completely. I also think that smartly conducted collecting can add new bloodlines, geographic diversity and enable captive breeders to work with new subspecies and species.

But I constantly question why certain species are still be collected in large numbers such as Russian and Redfoot tortoises. There are supposedly farms breeding Russian tortoises. I question how they can be financially feasible for these farmers to hatch, feed and care for thousands of tortoises long enough to raise them up to 4" SCL in order to legally ship them into the U.S. Even by forcing their growth to 4" it is going to take a couple of years at best. Add to this the care and maintenance of the adult breeding stock. All to sell the tortoises for $15-20 each wholesale to suppliers in the U.S.?

I wonder if they are just collecting all the smaller tortoises they can find and raising them up to 4" to import.


I want to believe that they are truly being captive born on farms and I think one day they will be. But I don't think it's happening yet.

So far I think that "farm raised" is just the feel good term for "wild caught".

 

[Anfi]

There are supposedly farms breeding Russian tortoises.

There are no farms breeding russian tortoises. Come on! 99% of tortoises are wild caught except a few breeders in US and Europe. There were some efforts to make a "farm" in Uzbekistan in 2001 but all they did were collecting eggs (from the wild) and raising juvenilles.

 

[GBtortoises]

There are supposedly farms breeding Russian tortoises.

There are no farms breeding russian tortoises. Come on! 99% of tortoises are wild caught except a few breeders in US and Europe. There were some efforts to make a "farm" in Uzbekistan in 2001 but all they did were collecting eggs (from the wild) and raising juvenilles.

I agree, that is why I used the term "supposedly"!

I think the "farms", which I have seen photos of, are simply holding and/or growing facilities for tortoises captured in the wild.

 

[Anfi]

I agree, that is why I used the term "supposedly"!

I think the "farms", which I have seen photos of, are simply holding and/or growing facilities for tortoises captured in the wild.

Exactly!

 

[TylerStewart]

Several years ago there were lots of adult and even old tortoises sold in every pet shop. But during the last years all I can see is sub-adults or juveniles. That means that there are no adults left in the wild!
I don't know what can actually stop the population decline now.

Well, this is partly true, but the reason there's few adults imported now is because the freight is much higher on larger tortoises, so people here (importers) buy the ones that are big enough (4") to be brought in, but small enough that they can fit X amount into a given crate. If they're paying a fixed price per tortoise, and they sell them for a fixed price per tortoise, it makes sense to bring in the smallest possible ones to keep shipping costs down. Several years ago, they were imported at 8"+ size, but lately they're almost always between 4" and 5" long. It costs three times as much to import (ship) an 8" tortoise as it does a 4" tortoise. I tend to think this is a good thing, since once they are past 6" in the wild, I believe they are left alone to a degree. There were a handful in 2009 that were imported larger; I bought some of them that were almost 7" in length. It's just not common because of the freight cost.

 

[GBtortoises]

The bottom line for shippers is that 4-5" tortoises are the ideal size (for them). They can fit more of those size animals in a specific size crate than they can 7-10" animals. More animals, more profit.

Tyler-I understand your point on collecting 4-5" animals over larger adults in that it leaves fully mature animals in the wild to continue to re-populate. But I don't totally agree with it because I think in the future, 10, 20 years down the road there is going to be a serious generation gap due to all of the younger adults that are being collected now. Those full grown adults are obviously older too, which means many will be dying over the next couple of decades. Those that are 4-5" now are would have been there to take the places of the older ones as they die off.

If collecting isn't going to be stopped, I would like to see a mix of ages and sizes being collected rather than concentrating on a specific size/age range. That way there would still be a mix of various sizes and ages still in the wild basically carrying on the same survival routine but probably with smaller numbers overall.

Ideally I would rather see stricter import quantity regulations put on species that are being over-collected for no reason other than that they're easily accessible.

Most of the popular "mainstream" species are now being produced in enough numbers in captivity to sustain their demand thanks to breeders like yourself and others. I think people in this hobby, whether just getting started or experienced should be encouraged to first look to breeders to find the species that they want. The more captive born animals that are produced and owned, the less demand for wild caughts there will be.

 

[-EJ]

I need to point out to the readers that while the Russian tortoises might have been taken out of the wild in past years USFW is trying real hard to curb this with following the rules to a stricter level.

Keep in mind that the main reason you see tortoises in the 4-5 inch range is not profit... although I'm sure the importer never realized this benefit... but because of the 4 inch rule. That is the smallest tortoise that is allowed into the US. Tortoises that size are captive raised on farms and that is the smallest they are allowed into the US. Our government is forcing the exporters to keep them until they are legal.

This is true with Redfoots, Egyptians, Hermanns, Marginateds... and would also be true for Leopards and Sulcatas if they were not banned from import.

Russian tortoises are also being produced but I don't know if they are being produced in the numbers the others are.