EXPRESS-NEWS (San Antonio, Texas) 09 June 07 Compromise marks TPW's great turtle debate (Ron Henry Strait)
A lot of tedious stuff is presented to the Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission during its regular public meetings, like the one held in late May.
That's not to say the goings on are unimportant. Rather, some presentations can be mind-numbing in content or length.
Consideration of regulatory changes regarding turtles could be lumped in that category, but it shouldn't.
At the May meeting, commissioners heard a legitimate debate on the agenda, "Commercial Collection and Sale of Nongame Wildlife."
Nongame wildlife makes up 90 percent of the wild critters that inhabit the state. That said, the debate joined by the commission was mostly about turtles and whether to restrict the taking for commercial purposes of all Texas turtles, regardless of species or where they were captured.
There was a chance that the commission would exempt three species of common turtles if they were taken from private waters, such as farm ponds.
The three species discussed were soft-shell, red-eared slider and common snapping turtles.
Turtles are a hot food commodity in China, and they are popular creatures in the domestic pet trade.
The Chinese food market received a lot of the blame for pressure put on turtle populations worldwide.
On one side facing the commissioners were scientists and zookeepers in support of the total ban. They said Texas turtles are threatened by unrestricted commercial harvest, and they made a couple of good points:
Mature turtles of breeding age are what the market wants, and turtles mature slowly, taking a decade or more to reach egg-laying age. Remove adult females from a native population and recovery might be impossible.
A turtle is a turtle, and identifying where it was captured would be difficult. Exemptions to a total ban would remove most of the teeth from the jaws of turtle regulations.
Countering those arguments were nongame collectors and dealers. A couple of their arguments:
There is no data that shows the three species in question are imperiled by commercial harvest.
Wild turtles are collected from over-populated private waters, where ranchers and farmers ask trappers to remove them.
An East Texas private turtle farmer said her business involved no wild turtles, yet she would be impacted adversely by a total ban.
An interesting statement came from a university professor who said he had seen a decline in populations during his 25 years of turtle research, and that fire ants and raccoons had killed 99 percent of the turtle eggs in his research region.
If that is true on a wider scale, then it will be difficult to blame collectors or dealers for any decline — which is not to say they won't have to pay the regulatory price.
Road kill and real-estate developers were also named as threats to turtles.
Commissioners listened, asked some good questions and then voted to ban commercial harvest of turtles in public waters and exempt from regulation for one year the taking of the three species from private waters while TPW researches the impact on turtle populations.
From tedious stuff are good compromises fashioned.
Bids for cabins: The General Land Office is accepting sealed bids for two building permits for cabins on the Intracoastal Waterway. Both sites are on spoil islands on the upper end of the Land Cut in Kenedy County. Bidding deadline is 5 p.m. July 13.
Each permit will allow a structure of up to 1,000 square feet. The permits are for five years, with renewal for five-year increments as long as all conditions of the GLO contract are met.
The minimum bid is $10,000. Proceeds go to public education in Texas. Cabins will belong to the state and can only be used for recreational purposes.
Compromise marks TPW's great turtle debate