Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey Ya'll -
I'll be going to Beijing in a week, and am looking for a reputable (higher-end) pet store which carries turtles and tortoises (perferably with CITES available). Any names/address/phone numbers? Please also send to my email: salexander@totality.com. Specifically, I'm interested in Cuora spp, Geochelone elegans, Geocholone platynota, and other rarer species. Again, I'm really looking for a pet store which knows CITES in China and has them, or can get the permits quickly.
Thanks,
Scott Alexander
VP of www.baars.org

hi - I travel to China once or twice a year for wildlife work, and was in Beijing last week. You'll find turtles and tortoises, as well as lots of snakes, mainly in food markets. The turtles are mainly farm-raised softshells and RE Sliders these days; the snakes are wild caught Elaphes of several species.

Dealers selling reptiles as pets are few, and since most wild caught turtles and torts in China are smuggled from Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar, they're illegal. Please don't support the trade in smuggled reptiles by buying them.

One person buying those tortoises and turtles to save them from certain death in the medicinal or food trade is nothing compared to the millions of native Chinese who buy them to sacrifice them for those purposes day in and day out. The argument that buying them supports the trade may be theoretically or politically correct, but Scott not buying them will make absolutely no difference in the numbers which are brought to those markets in the big picture. The situation in Southeast Asia is absolutely hopeless for turtles/tortoises and the more of them that can be "saved" by responsible Americans (or people of other nationalities for that matter)taking them out of the markets and placing them in captive breeding programs, the better.

and besides, anything wild caught that ends up in a Beijing market is so parasite loaded and stressed that you'd better have good expertise in meds. Really, in order to find any species worth trying to save in food markets in China, you have go far from Beijing and into southern provinces, where the rarer Cuoras might turn up.