BAYOU BUSINESS REVIEW (Houma, Louisiana) 07 May 06 Local turtle farmer watching decline of industry (Raymond Legendre)
Pierre Part: Almost like an assembly line in an automobile factory in Detroit, workers at Louisiana Cypress Turtle Farm are going about the task of collecting eggs left by red-eared slider turtles, which are distinctive for the broad red streak behind their eyes.
It’s an efficient process that owner of the 4-acre farm in Pierre Part, Mike Hebert, a 50-year-old man wearing an orange T-shirt and shorts, describes like this:
"We have two to three diggers," he said. "What we have are little sheets of tin, which are about 8 feet long, and they make a little teepee house. The turtle crawls underneath, digs a hole and lays it eggs. What we do is move the tin, dig out the eggs and another group (of workers) comes with their little basket and picks up the eggs. We have another group who comes behind them with a rake and fills the holes just like they were before. So the next day the turtles come back in the same area and lay underneath the sheets of tin. Every day we move them where the dirt is fresh. As soon as we have four or five baskets (of eggs), the washer picks them up, cleans them off and from there, we pack them and put them in our processing building."
Before the afternoon is done, Hebert and his crew will collect eggs on the dirt tracks encircling all three of his ponds, which measure 200-by-200 feet.
Every afternoon, this process repeats. And repeats. And repeats again until mid-June when the eggs begin hatching. Hebert’s crew starts modestly by picking up 70 eggs per day in early April but rapidly moves to collecting in the neighborhood of 7,000 eggs a day by mid-May.
Hebert, whose business has been in the family for nearly 50 years, expects to sell 300,000 turtles by end of this year, a figure that makes him one of Louisiana’s largest suppliers of baby turtles. The output of the state’s 56 turtle farms is worth an estimated $9.4 million, according to a recent study distributed by the LSU Agriculture Department. That might sound like a large number, but it isn’t.
"I love the business," Hebert said. Then his voice trails off a bit. "It’s just not really good right now. We’ve had a rough couple of years."
In the past three years:
Prices for individual turtles have yo-yoed. In 2003, they hit a peak price of a dollar, only to plunge to 18 cents the following year. This summer, Hebert said he would be lucky to net 30 cents per turtle.
Last fall, Hebert lost his peak business months -- September and October -- following Hurricane Katrina. In the time where he would usually sell 60,000 to 100,000 turtles, he didn’t sell one. By the time he got the okay to fly turtles out of Texas in November, his business for the previous two months had long since flown away.
China, which buys more American-bred baby turtles than any other country, is beginning to aggressively expand its own turtle-farming industry. The already crowded market has become flooded and, not surprisingly, prices for turtles have plummeted.
And to top it off, Hebert, along with every other turtle farmer in the United States, still has the pesky FDA ban hanging over him as it has for the past 30 years.
The Food and Drug Administration began banning the sale of pet baby turtles, with shells smaller than four inches in width, in the United States in 1975, after discovering the turtles might harbor Salmonella. Hebert said the FDA settled on banning baby turtles smaller than four inches because, at that size, a small child could stick the turtle in its mouth. Now, baby turtles can only be sold in America for educational purposes.
Salmonella is a bacteria that is usually found in poultry, eggs and unprocessed milk. The bacteria attacks the stomach and intestines, causing diarrhea and constipation, that can last from two to seven days.
According to the FDA’s Web site, turtles are responsible for more than 100,000 cases of Salmonella per year and that figure is growing. The number puzzles Hebert. He said he has been around turtles all his life and yet has never gotten Salmonella from them. He has, however, been stricken with Salmonella after eating chicken.
"Bacterias are all over," Hebert said. "Yes, it’s dangerous, but it’s the same thing if I’m cooking a chicken, and I cut the chicken with a knife and then use (the knife) to make a sandwich without washing it. Then I can get Salmonella. It’s the same if you play with a turtle and don’t wash your hands."
Later in the afternoon, once the eggs are collected, they are taken back to the processing building, behind Hebert’s house, to be cleaned. The dirt on the eggs is rinsed off and the eggs are soaked in bleach, which kills the bacteria. When they are done soaking, they are moved to a container of clear water. This method of cleaning the turtles, invented by the late LSU researcher Dr. Ron Siebeling, is used to reduce the possibility of salmonella in turtles.
"We used to use antibiotics," Hebert said. "But we got away from that because the FDA didn’t want us to use them because there was a chance of a resistant strain. Now that we’re using chemicals, from what I understand, it is a lot more difficult to get a resistant strain."
After they are cleaned, the eggs are kept in a storage room for two months. The room’s thermostat is kept between 82 to 83 degrees, a temperature similar to what the egg would feel in the wild in its nest buried five or six inches below the ground.
"When an egg gets close to hatching, it builds up a lot of heat so you have air conditioning on because if it goes higher than 85 the turtles are going to suffocate inside their shell," Hebert explained. He adds his electricity bill sometimes rises above $400 per month.
A glance at a basket of recently hatched baby turtles being kept in the storage room shows the turtles exhibiting none of the concern that clouds Hebert’s face when he talks about the future of his business. The turtles are rambunctious as they crawl over each other’s shells on some sort of unknown quest. It’s hard to fathom that a large fraction of a person’s livelihood can depend on something so small.
But it does.
By June 15, Hebert will be ready to begin shipping turtles to three continents (South America, Africa and Asia) in crates holding 500 baby turtles. Some countries import the red-eared sliders, which grow up to five to six pounds, for pets; others import them for food. Doesn’t matter, just so long as they keep buying.
Overseas purchases have kept Hebert’s business alive for the past 30 years, since the FDA banned baby turtle sales in this country, but the time is coming where it will take more than the international market.
Hebert said he has been in contact with the offices of local politicians in Washington -- Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, and Sen. David Vitter, R-La., -- and they have been receptive to his calls for help.
"Our main problem is that in order for legislation to be passed, it needs support from a lot more representatives from around the nation," Hebert said. "Now we’re not the only state with turtle farmers … There are about 10 different states with turtle farms … As far as I know, we are the state with the tightest regulations."
Hebert said he is appreciative that the state agricultural department has allowed the state’s turtle farmers to continue shipping turtles overseas, but added that he wishes Louisiana would be more like Florida, which allows turtle farmers to sell within state lines. Although Hebert wants to sell across the country, selling in Louisiana, where he expects individual turtles would command $2, would be a strong start that would not only boost his sales, but also allow him to hire more workers.
If and when the ban is lifted, Hebert’s plan to prevent people from catching Salmonella from baby turtles is simple: educate, educate, educate.
"The FDA tried to educate the public but admittedly the public awareness is very low when it comes to owning a pet reptile," he said. "I feel if they lift the ban and let turtle farmers sell in the U.S., then we can educate the public much easier. You can buy a tablet put out by Tetra and put it in the bowl or aquarium, and it will kill the Salmonella inside the water. ... Another is washing your hands."
According to Chinese myth, turtles carry the world on their backs as a representation of fertility and patience.
Hebert’s baby red-eared sliders might not carry the entire world on the backs of their tiny 4-inch wide shells, but they are expected to carry a significant chunk of his finances.
Lately, they haven’t. He has always worked side jobs, but now his side jobs are paying for the upkeep of his farm as well as the $30,000 a year he pays to feed the tens of thousands of adult turtles living on the farm.
Chinese myth also dictates that a person can see the future by looking at the curves along a turtle’s shell. Hebert has seen the future and it is a grim one, unless the FDA lifts its ban.
"I feel like if the price doesn’t rise back above 50 cents in the next three years, I’m going to have to shut my doors," he said. "I can put my farm up for sale, but who’s going to buy it when it’s not making any money? It’s a shame. After 50 years of my family owning this business, I am really considering shutting it down because it is not a viable business right now."
Not only will he go out of business if changes aren’t made, but Hebert predicts Louisiana’s $9.4 million turtle farming industry will dry up in the next decade as well.
"You stop ($9.4) million from coming into Louisiana and that makes a big difference," he said. "If they’d lift the ban new farms would pop up, and we’d be able to hire more people. Instead of $9 million, we’d be making closer to $20 million."
Hebert has petitioned the FDA many times to repeal the ban. And without fail, its reply has been no.
Could this be the year it reverses course? Hebert doubts it.
Local turtle farmer watching decline of industry