THE OKLAHOMAN (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) 29 March 08 Saving the turtles goes slow, steady (John David Sutter)

Environmental groups this week petitioned Oklahoma and three other states to place an emergency moratorium on the collection and sale of turtles, saying Oklahoma's current laws governing the turtle trade hurt biodiversity and pose a "substantial and imminent public health risk.”

The petition, which was issued Thursday by the Center for Biodiversity and co-signed by the Oklahoma Chapter of the Sierra Club and others, says Oklahoma is one of only three states that allows people to catch wild turtles and sell them with almost no oversight.

State agencies "currently allow unlimited commercial harvest of turtles for human consumption with little to no regulatory oversight, despite the fact that many of these turtles are harvested from streams that are presently subject to fish advisories and bans that precaution against and prohibit human consumption,” the report says.

The turtle harvest in Oklahoma also "threatens to drive some U.S. freshwater-turtle populations to extinction,” the petition says.

What rules exist?

The state Wildlife Department takes issues with the claims, saying the turtle trade is regulated. But department officials said relatively little is known about turtle populations and sales in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma requires people who collect and sell turtles to have a permit, but the permit allows collectors to take as many turtles as they want without reporting it. Turtle buyers and exporters must give the Wildlife Department an annual report that includes how many turtles they bought and sold, and what species the turtles were. The department does not check exports or conduct inspections. It relies on the reports from buyers to be truthful.

Oklahoma is home to a few rare species of turtles.

The northern map turtle is protected by state law, and legally cannot be bought or sold. Two other turtles — the alligator snapping turtle and the western chicken turtle — are rare enough that they can't be traded.

"We've been going along now for 15 years with this program, and the number of harvesters is typically below 100 (permits per year) and they tend to be self-regulating,” said Jeff Boxrucker, assistant chief of fisheries at the Wildlife Department.

He said enforcement officials at the department would take notice and act if turtle sales or permit numbers jumped — indicating possible abuse of the self-regulated system.

Only three states — Oklahoma, Georgia and Florida — operate under such a system, according to the environmental groups' petition. In 2007, Texas passed a ban on commercial turtle harvesting in public waters. Other states — like North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee — ban harvesting of all endemic fresh-water turtles, the petition says.

"The best available scientific evidence shows turtles cannot sustain any level of harvest without causing population crashes in the wild,” the environmental groups say.

It's difficult to say whether there's a problem with Oklahoma's laws, because little is known about turtle populations here, said Mark Howery, Wildlife Department diversity biologist.

Howery said the state doesn't monitor turtle populations, and relies on anecdotal evidence to say whether turtle numbers spike or crash. That's common for amphibians, he said, because counts are difficult. Numbers fluctuate by weather and season.
Saving the turtles goes slow, steady

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