The Project
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The numbers for some species are quite shocking and I’m left wondering how wild populations can possibly sustain such trade. According to CITES data over 200,000 Horsfield’s tortoises (Testudo horsfieldii) have been exported from Uzbekistan alone in the last five years, with over 30,000 of them coming to the UK; all of them wild-caught or ranched. Horsfield’s tortoise is currently listed as vulnerable on the IUCN red list - it ‘is facing a high risk of extinction in the wild in the medium-term future’. Although much of this trade is legal, beyond expert opinion there seems to be precious little that can be done to validify claims of origin.
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Mediterranean spur-thighed tortoises (Testudo graeca) and Hermann’s tortoises (Testudo hermanni) are also traded in large numbers even though all trade of wild caught and ranched individuals of these species is illegal under CITES regulations. Accordingly, neither species can legally be traded without Article 10 certificates, on which origin is recorded. Unfortunately these certificates are not specimen specific until the tortoise reaches a size at which it can be safely microchipped - so it is possible to pass a wild caught tortoise off as captive bred through the use of fraudulently obtained Article 10s. Worryingly, in a study by the RSPCA it was reported thatTestudo graeca could be bought for as little as £1 on market stalls in Marrakech - and I have heard similar reports about other markets. People who buy these animals may or may not know that they are breaking the law by doing so, but such animals can make a very tidy profit, going for as much as £200 if sold as captive bred.
Where did it really come from? With less commonly bred species such as the popular Indian star tortoise (Geochelene elegans), it is possible to check claims of captive breeding using DNA tests to check parentage. But with high volume species like spur-thighed and Hermann’s the cost and logistics of this become prohibitive. This is where my study steps in: Stable Isotope Analysis (SIA) is relatively cheap and looks promising as a tool to confirm claims of origin. As this tool has not been used for tortoises before, a major aim of my study is to provide proof of concept. I will therefore be starting small, developing a sampling protocol and checking that SIA can be used to distinguish between UK and imported tortoises. SIA has huge potential in the field of wildlife trade regulation but is largely untapped. If it can be used successfully on tortoises (and there are multiple reasons why it might not) the possibilities seem almost endless. GO TO SPECIMENS AND SAMPLES |