After I wrote the last post, realizing my only-very-basic understanding of internal herp laws as they relate to Indonesian wildlife, I decided to further that understanding via the details. Not within the U.S., since everything (including even our exchange) seems ambiguous, but rather, into the species’ legality within Indonesia (we know what legality is in the other two range countries).

Turtle species not federally protected and/or listed under CITES are controlled by the Fishery Service, executed at the local level (with conservation little a priority). This is likely why such huge numbers of batagurids made it out of Indo in the nineties before most of them went Appendix II.

However, Carettochelys is one of six protected turtle species in Indonesia. Federally protected species (based on Gov. Regulation No. 7 of 1999, the same year many Carettochelys began appearing in the U.S.) are controlled by the authority of the Ministry of Forestry and Estate Crops. Protected species are disallowed any utilization “except with special permission from the Minister and under the consent of the Scientific Authority for very special circumstances and captive breeding.” That last term conjures the curious paradox turned up by the cited reference.

In Government Regulation No. 8 of 1999, Chapter III Article 7, eggs and juveniles of species with naturally low hatchling survival rates (crocs and turtles being the example given) can be collected from the wild for captive breeding and may afterwards be exploited as a commodity… after the second generation. However, Chapter XI, Article 44 allows the possibility to use any “captive bred” species for trade (thus confusing whether wild-harvested, captive-hatched babies are included). This duality has allowed for the issuance of quotas for some (nationally) protected species. The publication from which this information is drawn mandates that “the captive management section (Chapter 3) needs to be corrected according to international definitions of captive breeding and ranching.” That may do little to resolve the paradox, as we know that turtle “farming” in Arkansas and Louisiana (with U.S. state legal workers determining the definitional wording) is anything but bona fide farming.

The difficulty seems to be that the government does not issue export quotas, but rather the quotas may be executed on local levels (on behalf of local pressure). This would seemingly imply that the species would not be up for legal export. Eggs collected from one documented river harvest (half a million eggs in 1998) were hatched out and the young turtles were shipped to Jakarta and a few other Indonesian cities, “from where they were illegally exported to Taiwan, China or Singapore. The turtles were declared as fish when export was undertaken.” This brings up another problem with wildlife shipping legalities in Indo. Act No. 10 of 1995 concerning Customs and Excise disallows customs officers from opening (thus inspecting) packages unless there is intelligence information that the packages contain illegal goods.

The paradox, even if found in favor of export quotas, shows that only youngsters would be legally exported, and this means that no legal import into the U.S. would be allowable (unless farmed animals were held for three to five years before export, such that they reached the four inch mark) on behalf of diminutive juvenile size (recall, nothing under four inches unless it has strict implications for special use). Further, the fact that gross numbers of juvenile Carettochelys have been documented in Chinese animal markets and pet fairs suggests that alternative smuggling routes may wind up in the U.S. The far lower price of the species in China, plus it’s greater availability, may illustrate that Indonesian contraband wildlife has an easier time getting into China than it does into the U.S. (where Carettochelys costs up to $500 dollars, instead of $5).

The publication from which much of the legal information was derived goes on to illustrate the sheer volume of exploitation going on in Irian Jaya/ Papua New Guinea (trafficked across the boarder to Indonesia’s half of the island) to obtain the “illegal” eggs. The numbers are mind boggling, and we’re resultantly going to watch an incredibly curious relict exhibit the exact same pattern of boom-crash that Batagur did almost a century earlier.

Finally, for those who want to self-righteously cry that the specimens that wind up in the U.S. could prove a foundation for the species’ captive conservation, I offer a wrinkle. The species expresses TSD. As has already been seen with ex-situ incubation of many species’ eggs (for headstarting programs), manmade incubation environs can produce skewed sex ratios. If eggs are dug up and incubated in covered, protected sites (i.e., out of immediate sun), males tend to be a heavy result. This does not bode well for expedient numerical expansion nor convenient genetic diversification of captive stocks. It appears as though this species’ position is a precarious one in every direction.

The reference for the legality info and egg collection data was the CRF’s Chelonian Research Monograph Number 2 (August 2000) – Asian Turtle Trade: Proceedings of a Workshop on Conservation and Trade of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises in Asia. Van Dijk, Peter Paul, et. al. It had been several years since I read through that one, and I had forgotten what a useful work it is for understanding international use in these animals.

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