Article about the federal bills posted here a while ago, more on Rexano website:
http://www.rexano.org/DA_FEDERAL.htm
Zuzana Kukol
www.rexano.org
==
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070423/NEWS01/704230311/1002/NEWS
April 23, 2007
Timeline
1940s: Louisiana farmers find a market for pet turtles; create ponds and stock with wild turtles.
1950s: Market grows with nationwide distribution to pet shops and variety stores; specific turtle farms created.
1960s: Turtles among most popular pets.
1970: FDA restricts interstate transportation of turtles because of salmonella concerns.
1975: FDA bans the sale of baby turtles in the U.S., crippling market.
1980s: Turtle farmers develop European markets.
1990s: Huge Chinese market opens.
2000: Chinese begin growing own turtles.
By Mike Hasten
mhasten@gannett.com
BATON ROUGE — Until the mid-1970s, mothers across America regularly grimaced when they entered their sons' rooms and smelled the stagnant water in the pet turtles' bowls — stinky, yes, but never thought of as harmful or even deadly.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, seeking ways to stem salmonellosis, the intestinal ailment caused by salmonella, in 1975 imposed a nationwide ban on the sale or distribution within the United States of turtles with shells smaller than four inches — the size commonly sold as pets in stores in every city and small town.
Michael Herndon, spokesman for the FDA's veterinary science division, said small turtles were targeted because "The agency believed that turtles with shells larger than four inches do not pose the same threat since youngsters would not likely try to fit them into their mouths." In 1970, "a quarter million infants and small children were diagnosed with having turtle-associated salmonellosis."
Few people knew the ban would have a multi-million-dollar impact on Louisiana.
Since the 1940s, Louisiana had hundreds of turtle farms primarily raising Pseudemys scripta elegans, commonly known as red-eared sliders, for pet stores across the nation. Each farmer had several ponds with as many as 60,000 egg-producing turtles in each pond.
Now that scientists at LSU have developed a procedure to make baby turtles 99.9 percent salmonella-free, two U.S. congressmen representing Louisiana, Sen. David Vitter and Rep. Rodney Alexander, have introduced legislation directing the FDA to lift the ban.
"I believe this legislation is important because it puts an end to the FDA's unfair standards that limit the livelihood of our Louisiana farmers," Vitter said. "The FDA is holding pet turtles to a standard that is impossible to reach — one that even food products are not expected to attain — but this bill would allow Louisiana farmers to sell their pet turtles and compete against the foreign market."
The legislation has not been scheduled for a hearing in the House or Senate.
Turtle farmers question why the FDA targeted turtles when other childhood pets, like lizards and birds, also carry salmonella.
Herndon agreed that "other pets, such as baby poultry — chickens, ducks and turkeys — do carry salmonella but they are not regulated by FDA."
Louisiana currently has more than 60 turtle farms spread across the state, mainly just north of Alexandria, but 13 are centered around Pierre Part, a small community on the eastern edge of the Atchafalaya Basin north of Morgan City. The turtle industry is estimated by the state Department of Agriculture to have combined annual turtle sales totaling $9.4 million.
The only way the industry has survived is ingenuity, says Greg Lutz, state aquaculture specialist with the LSU AgCenter's Aquaculture Research Station.
"Over the years, they only had a fairly limited marketing outlet," Lutz said. "There's always been a good bit of gamesmanship over who can sell the most."
Somehow, Louisiana turtle farmers discovered a major market in China and "for a number of years, three or four groups were buying in China," he said. "They all knew the turtle farmers by name" and heated price bidding sometimes resulted.
"They have to be shrewder than the typical trader on the Chicago Mercantile," Lutz said of the farmers.
The Chinese market started faltering, so turtle farmers started organizing and formed the Louisiana Turtle Farmers Association. Now there's also the Aquatic Chelonian Board, an official state commission that looks out for the interest of turtle farmers. Chelonian refers to creatures with shells, namely turtles and tortoises, so the "aquatic" designation eliminates tortoises.
Turtle farmer Kenneth Landry, of Pierre Part, currently a member of the state turtle board, said markets are now limited and the market price of baby turtles has plummeted.
The Chinese "basically dictate the price," he said. "Three years ago we were getting approximately $1 per turtle" shipped to China. "Now it's 30 cents."
The Chinese market buys more than 75 percent of the turtles sold in Louisiana, Landry said, but as they did with crawfish, "now they're producing their own," cutting into Louisiana farmers' sales.
Very few of the turtles sold to the Chinese are kept as pets in turtle bowls, he said. Most end up in soup bowls.
In the early 1980s and through the 1990s, Louisiana farmers developed markets in Europe "but it was shut down by the European Union because they didn't want more turtles coming in," Lutz said. "They literally had millions of turtles there already.
"If the U.S. market opened up, it could easily support 200 turtle farmers," he said.
Turtles are again showing up at some pet stores, Herndon said.
On April 6, the FDA issued a new advisory warning that "contact with baby turtles can pose a serious health risk to infants, small children, and adults with impaired immune systems as they can be natural hosts to salmonella, a group of bacteria that can cause severe illness and death."
Recently, a 4-week-old infant in Florida died of infection traced to salmonella pomona, a bacteria that was also found in a pet turtle in the home.
Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom said he supports lifting the ban. He said his office is responsible for testing turtles and certifying that they are salmonella-free.
"We have the technology to treat the eggs, treat the turtles and treat the water," Odom said. "If they're free from salmonella, I don't know why farmers can't sell them."
"It's a shame they won't let us sell in the U.S.," said turtle farmer Jerry Landry, who has been in the business since 1962. "Nothing's 100 percent safe. Our turtles are 99-and-something percent salmonella-free. If something isn't done, this industry can't survive."
Odom acknowledges, "It would be tough to get sales approved in the U.S." with the FDA so adamant.
The FDA spokesman said it would literally take an act of Congress to make the agency change its ruling.
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