Turtle Smuggling

Yellow-margined Box Turtle, photo Wikipedia.


Today's Taipei Times reports that "The Coast Guard Administration on Saturday intercepted 2,626 protected turtles being smuggled to China, seizing them and handing them over to the Forestry Bureau for emergency treatment and examination."

The article goes on to say that there was found to be "1,446 yellow-margined box turtles (aka. snake-eating turtle) and 1,180 Asian brown pond turtles — both listed under rare valuable species according to the Wildlife Conservation Act (野生動物保育法)."

The Yellow-margined box turtle (Cuora flavomarginata) is a land turtle/tortoise native to Taiwan and is listed on the INCN list of Red Data species as Endangered. The smuggling of turtles to China and other countries for food or the pet trade has become big business. In the current tough economic climate there has been a marked increase in poaching. Many villagers see poaching as a way to make money when other jobs are hard to come by.