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Ban on commercial turtle harvesting faces Wednesday vote

Photo by Margaret Gunzburger

Matthew Aresco, a freshwater turtle biologist , supports the ban that would limit harvesting to one per day for recreational purposes.

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By CATHERINE DOLINSKI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 16, 2009

TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will vote Wednesday on whether to enact the strictest ban in the country on freshwater turtle harvesting.

Commercial harvesting of freshwater turtles has exploded in Florida as Asian countries have exhausted their native supplies of the animals. Asian countries, which prize the animals for their meat, consume roughly 13 million turtles a year. Increasingly, they have turned to states like Florida to provide their supply.

"In Southeast Asia, they drove all of their species to endangerment," said Matthew Aresco, a freshwater turtle biologist who oversees a private conservation preserve in Walton County. "The concern is, the same thing would happen to Florida's turtles, over a short amount of time."

The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission estimates that Florida's turtle harvesters gather about 140,000 pounds of turtles a year, producing about 47,000 pounds of meat.

Responding to rising alarm among biologists and conservationists, the state imposed temporary restrictions last fall on freshwater turtle gathering. In April, the wildlife commission gave unanimous preliminary approval to ban all commercial harvesting.

The ban would surpass all others in the United States, limiting harvesting to one per day for recreational purposes. Turtle farmers with permits would be able to take "brood stock" from the wild, but with the goal of becoming self-sustaining in several years. Commissioners would re-evaluate the farming allowance again in 2011.

The commission is expected to give the ban final approval when it meets Wednesday and Thursday in Crystal River.

It's a clear victory for biologists that disappoints Taren Wadley in Eagle Lake, who helps manage the Thomas Fish Co. that her family has owned for 50 years.

"They totally, completely shut down an industry and have offered no kind of compensation – how fair is that?" said Wadley, whose company catches and sells turtles to exporters. "Can you imagine them shutting down the entire beef industry because people don't like killing cows?"

In addition to catching and selling turtles themselves, the company also sells the trot lines that fishermen use to harvest turtles.

The commission points out that Florida fishermen generally do not rely on turtles for their livelihood and tend to gather the animals along with fish. But Wadley said the lines she sells are designed specifically for turtles.

"We had thousands of dollars' worth of lines purchased for the wild turtle market," she said. "We're just stuck with it."

Wadley is also among those who also claim that, prior to the Asian demand for turtles, the animals were overpopulating. Pat Behnke, spokeswoman for the commission, acknowledged the argument.

But turtle populations are extremely difficult to monitor, Behnke said, and the state has no such baseline data to compare with the spike in commercial turtle gathering.

"We had no reasonable way to do it – that's why we shut it down," she said. "We felt this was the most conservative and safest course of action."

Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382.

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