US F&W Seeks CITES LISTING for Snapping Turtles, 3 Softshells: Do you Agree?

[findi]

Hi, Frank Indiviglio here. I’m a herpetologist, zoologist, and book author, recently retired from a career spent at several zoos, aquariums, and museums, including over 20 years with the Bronx Zoo
The US Fish & Wildlife Service is currently (December, 2014) seeking Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) protection for the Common Snapping Turtle and the Florida, Spiny, and Smooth Softshell Turtles. Each is being collected from the wild in ever increasing numbers and exported to Asian food and medicinal markets. With so many Asian species having been decimated by over-collection (please see article below), pressure on US species will surely increase. While several of the turtles involved are perceived to be common, recent export figures are grim. For example, approximately 2,178,000 live, wild-caught Snapping Turtles were exported from the USA between 2009 and 2011 (this excludes processed meat and eggs). Read the rest of this article here http://bit.ly/1IZIDFS
Please also check out my posts on Twitter http://bitly.com/JP27Nj and Facebook http://on.fb.me/KckP1m

My Bio, with photos of animals I’ve been lucky enough to work with: http://bitly.com/LC8Lbp

Best Regards, Frank

 

[The Snark]

Well Frank, as you know, this is a major touchy subject with animal lovers on both sides of the fence, bellowing their heads off. We need to be cut and dried honest. I quote Gerald Durrell: 'The future of the human race relies on conservation, not continual rapacious exploitation'.

For most species endangered an excuse can be made for not clamping down with rigid laws protecting them. Viable credible arguments usual including personal rights to own or make a profit. Overly extreme laws vs the individuals freedoms and their demand to use their own common sense.

But entering into this fray is the profiteers, the big BIG $$$. They take advantage of people demanding their rights and a barren desert devoid of all life is fine by them in their artificial environment ivory towers. Does anyone recall when sperm whale penises were all the rage as bar stools at $50,000 a crack on up?

I hesitate to say it, but the laws, the protections, overly protective they may be, not only need to be enacted and enforced, they need to be far more extensive and comprehensive. The big money can and will decimate animal populations in incredibly short periods. It wasn't too many years ago when the Blue fin tuna was lauded as the most populace predator in the oceans. It is now looking extinction dead in the face and the kills per year are actually increasing.

We need to look past the immediate circumstances. Past our own personal interests. Look at the broader picture and the distant future. What we are going to give our children and future generations. The native American creedo really isn't pie in the sky but the cold hard reality. Look to the future for seven generations and strive to give them all that we now have. For if we don't, inevitably, we are driving ourselves down a dead end street.

Thanks for the post and article.