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State seeks to ban turtle harvest
Parks and Wildlife official cites signs that some need more protection.

By Mike Leggett
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, April 05, 2007

Texas Parks and Wildlife commissioners voted Wednesday to propose a ban on the commercial harvest off all turtles in Texas.

Commissioners have begun a review of the department's nongame permit program, which allows trappers and buyers to deal in turtles that are mainly headed to overseas food markets.

The staff recommendation presented Wednesday to the Regulations Committee called for allowing continued trade only in the very common red-eared slider. However, commissioners said they were concerned about the over-collection of all turtle species and directed staff members to publish rules that prevent the take of all turtles.

Matt Wagner, head of the nongame program at Parks and Wildlife, told commissioners there are a number of Texas turtles that have begun to show signs of over-harvest and need expanded protection. Scientific studies have shown, Wagner said, that those turtle populations can't support a sustained harvest.

"There are very few states that are more wide open (in turtle harvesting) than Texas," Wagner told commissioners.

Commissioner Phil Montgomery said he recently visited China and had seen the impact turtles are having on the food market there.

"There is a demand for wildlife where there hasn't been a demand before," he said. Montgomery suggested, though, that Parks and Wildlife needs to be cautious about not creating a black market for turtles by restricting their commercial harvest.

The broad proposal presented to commissioners Wednesday also included proposals that Wagner said will improve reporting about the harvest of a number of snakes, frogs, lizards and other species. Eighty-five species will be eligible for commercial collection, but annual reporting will be required for all of those species.

The recommendation will be published in the Texas Register, and it will be open for public comment until the commission's next meeting in May.

Texas is a rather Lax State as far as collection goes, particularly considering the number of unique animals. I am kind of happy to hear this but hope the new regulations won't go too far. I guess we will just have to see though.

Hi,
I just moved to east Texas. Can you tell me where I can find out more about the laws in TX about the reptiles you can and can not keep as pets. And the laws on the reptiles you can and can not collect from the wild?
I use to live in Oregon and they had a list of the reptiles protected and the ones that were not allowed in Oregon online so anyone could look up and find out if what they wanted to keep was ok or not etc.
Is there any kind of site or link with this info on it?

Any help would be great!
Thanks,
Snakester.

>>I just moved to east Texas. Can you tell me where I can find out more about the laws in TX about the reptiles you can and can not keep as pets. And the laws on the reptiles you can and can not collect from the wild?

Google is generally helpful, if you know where to start...TX Parks & Wildlife is the place you want to check out. I used to have a link to the specific page on my own site but they've restructured the TPWD site since my last update.
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Chris McMartin
www.mcmartinville.com
I'm Not a Herpetologist, but I Play One on the Internet

The Texas Turtle Ban is not to protect the turtles. If the ban was to protect turtles it would not allow for property owners to kill unwanted turtles. But that is how the changes are written. We as turtle harvestors are called by property owners who have excessive turtles in their PRIVATE waters to remove them. Their are currently less than 350 licensed non-game harvestors in Texas and their are more than 11 million acres of PRIVATE water in Texas. Due the math their is no way we can cause the extinction of turtles when their is also more than 11 million acres of public water in Texas that we are not allowed to trap in. This ban does not only effect us it effects anyone who wants to sell turtles in Texas and anyone who wants to posses turtles in Texas. We have been harvesting turtles for sale to buyers for the past 3 years but this year we decided to start a Turtle Farm but now that is threatened because the proposed changes would force us to dispose of our turtles.
We need your help now tomorrow 5/21/2007 is the deadline for public comment on this matter even if you are against turtle harvesting you should be against a ban that prohibts the sale of Captive Bred Turtles and allows property owners that have to many turtles eating their fish and waterfowl to be forced to kill the turtles instead of them being harvested for commercial use or relocation.
Say no to the proposed changes email matt.wagner@tpwd.state.tx.us
and say leave PRIVATE PROPERTY PRIVATE

Remember they are very close to changing the FDA law on the sale of turtles under 4" as pets in the U.S. and this change would stop you from buying turtles as pets in Texas.