Ocean Sentry
Under a newly proposed law, all commercial harvesting of freshwater turtles will be completely banned in Florida. The draft rule that bans commercial harvesting of Florida”s diverse freshwater turtle population was passed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on April 15, with a final vote to be held at a June meeting in Crystal River.
If the new law passes, Florida’s ban on freshwater turtle harvesting will be the most protective in the country.
The ban on commercial harvesting of turtles is a complete turnaround from where the state was just over a year ago. At that time, outraged residents in Gainesville, concerned with truckloads of turtles being taken from Newnan’s Lake, learned that there was no limit to the number of turtles that could be taken during open season.
That meant it was perfectly legal for the hundreds of turtles to be taken from the area lake and sold to foreign markets for food and medicine. The turtles were taken alive and were still wriggling in their sacks as they were hoisted into trucks.
Many scientists wrote to the state, saying that due to turtles’ slow growth rate and low reproduction rate, commercial harvesting of turtles was unsustainable. Even Gov. Charlie Crist wrote that he was opposed to unregulated commercial turtle harvesting.
“We have the benefit of already seeing what happened in Asia when they depleted their rivers,” Johnston said. “Few places on Earth have so many turtle species in such a small area; we have an opportunity to protect something very special.”
(From highspringsherald.com, by Rachael Anne Ryals)
