Texas Parks & Wildlife Commissioners Vote to Begin Protecting Freshwater Turtles in Public Waters.

From an e-mail from the Director of the Texas Conservation Alliance (formerly TCONR)

May 25, 2007

Hey, Folks!

 After a lengthy and carefully-considered discussion, with more than 25 people testifying, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission today adopted a rule which bans turtle collection in public waters but allows certain species of turtles to be harvested from private waters. 

 In addition, the Commission made it very clear that this was not the end of the turtle issue.  They gave lengthy directions to staff for monitoring, data collection, and more frequent reporting, with an eye toward whether there should be size limits on turtles, especially to avoid the take of mature females, “bag” limits to keep the numbers down, seasons to preclude turtle harvest during the breeding season, and perhaps ultimately a complete ban.

 Red-eared sliders, soft-shell turtles, and common snapping turtles are the species that can continue to be collected from private waters.

 While not the complete ban that conservation activists, including Texas Conservation Alliance, have been pushing for, the establishment of limits on non-game species is a HUGE step forward.  Turtles and tortoises went from being completely unregulated to having most species protected and all collection on land and in public waters off limits to wild turtle capture.

 At the same time hundreds of mammals, birds, amphibians, and other reptiles became off-limits to commercial harvest.  Only the species on a “white list” are allowed for capture.

 A major speculation that ensued is whether or not the commercial turtle trade would be economically viable given the new restrictions.  This could make it a moot point whether further restrictions would be necessary.

 The concerns expressed by experts in herpetology and ecotoxicology and other citizens concerned about wild species included the following major points:  1) the bioaccumulation of toxins in turtle tissue from turtles living in contaminated waters, 2) the difficulty of law enforcement if some species and some waters are exempted from a ban, 3) the impacts on other species caused by the capture process, and 4) the difficulty turtle populations have recovering when overharvested. 

 Chris Jones, an attorney representing TCA, gets high praise for the amount of attention he has generated to this issue.  We very much appreciate the numerous experts who took the time to come and testify or send written comments to the Commission.

 While I understand the disappointment of the more than 1,300 people (including me!) who made on-line comments in favor of outright ban and the hundreds or thousands more who signed petitions, I want to encourage you to celebrate what a major step forward this rule represents.  There is now a program in place to protect non-game species from collection.  The Commission was very engaged in the issue, very concerned about turtle populations, more focused than perhaps any time in its history on non-game species.  And there is promise of ongoing attention and likely further restrictions on turtle harvest in the future.

 Janice

Janice Bezanson, Executive Director

Texas Conservation Alliance

Formerly Texas Committee on Natural Resources (TCONR)

512-327-4119

bezanson@texas.net

TexasConservationAlliance.org