I stepped on toes. I called your little pookie illegal. Okay. Sorry for prodding at you, heh. I have been under the impression that Indonesia operated off of an independent regs system in addition to the CITES signatory regs and that the former is what all turtle species are regulated for export underneath (minus all of those Appendix II batagurids). Whether that's true or not, importation of the species is controlled such that there is an individual currently doing prison time in Florida for bringing a shipment of Carettochelys in (he was liscensed to import reptiles; as the shipment was reputedly trans-shipping through Singapore I do not know if he violated any separate laws). That info came from a Floridian turtle broker, and I also recall reading about the incident a little while back in a periodical.

Virtually all of the Carettochelys in the country would still have to be smuggled in. Customs wouldn't miss by an inch, or inch and a half, and most of the ones we see are well under the four inch mark. Turtles can't come in for unspecified distribution (or pet dist.) if they're under four inches. Hopefully, for the sake of most of the well-intentioned Carettochelys keepers in the U.S., I'm mislead with regards to the few legal-size, pre '05 specimens. Still, play it safe and don't make this species the CAHS posterchild just yet. Best regards.

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