{"id":2204,"date":"2011-02-24T15:52:11","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T04:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/?p=2204"},"modified":"2012-03-21T09:33:43","modified_gmt":"2012-03-20T22:33:43","slug":"many-species-of-turtles-may-become-extinct-in-the-next-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/nature\/many-species-of-turtles-may-become-extinct-in-the-next-decade\/","title":{"rendered":"Many species of turtles and tortoises may become extinct in the next decade"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2206\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 605px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2206\" title=\"lonesome-george\" src=\"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/lonesome-george.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"605\" height=\"375\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lonesome George at the Charles Darwin Research Station. Image: Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Armour is no longer good protection from all of the risks out there.<!--more--><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A report from the <a href=\" http:\/\/www.wcs.org\/new-and-noteworthy\/25-most-endangered-turtles.aspx \" target=\"blank\">Wildlife Conservation Society<\/a> (WCS) and the <a href=\" http:\/\/www.turtlesurvival.org\/blog\/1-blog\/116-turtles-in-trouble \" target=\"blank\">Turtle Survival Coalition<\/a> has listed the 25 most endangered turtle species in the world, including 17 from Asia, 3 from Africa, 3 in South America, 1 in Central America and Mexico, and 1 from Australia.<\/p>\n<p>The report says illegal hunting of turtles for pets, food and medicine is a particular problem. Prices for a rare turtle or tortoise in the black market trade can be in the tens of thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Every tortoise and turtle species in Asia is being impacted in some manner by the international trade in turtles and turtle products,&#8221; co-author Brian D. Horne, WCS announced in the press release. &#8220;In just one market in Dhaka, Bangladesh we saw close to 100,000 turtles being butchered for consumption during a religious holiday, and we know of at least three other such markets within the city.&#8221;\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The most endangered species on the list is the Pinta Island Tortoise (Chelonoidis abingdonii), with  only a single male, &#8220;\u02dcLonesome George&#8217;, alive today. Next is the Red River Giant Softshell Turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) from China and Vietnam, which only has four animals (three males and one female) left.<\/p>\n<p>Some species may even disappear before scientists can work out where they have come from. Zhou&#8217;s Box Turtle, the 6th most endangered species, has occasionally been spotted in the turtle markets of China, but no one has managed to locate a wild population.<\/p>\n<p>Liz Bennett, Vice President of WCS&#8217;s Species Program, said in the press release &#8220;turtles are wonderfully adapted to defend themselves against predators by hiding in their shells, but this defense mechanism doesn&#8217;t work against organized, large-scale human hunting efforts. The fact is that turtles are being vacuumed up from every nook and cranny in Asia and beyond.&#8221;\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Armour is no longer good protection from all of the risks out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,56,45,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-conservation","category-environment","category-nature"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2204"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2209,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions\/2209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}