CAPTIVE BRED OR ILLEGAL IMPORT? - UK TORTOISE
BUYERS NEED TO BEWARE
A.C.Highfield
A supposedly 'captive-bred'
Testudo - we don't think so
We thought we had seen the last
of it over 15 years ago. Pet stores, garden centers and back-door
dealers offering Mediterranean tortoises in bulk. Unfortunately,
we were wrong. The Mediterranean tortoise trade is back.
For many years after the initial
1984 import ban, a steady trickle of illegally collected wild caught
animals continued to appear. Most of these animals were quite literally
smuggled into the UK and Europe from Morocco, Tunisia and other
localities such as Turkey. While disturbing, the volume of animals
remained relatively low. Most were sold by private small adverts
in newspapers – although several of the more unscrupulous ‘specialist
reptile dealers’ were also heavily implicated. Occasionally, a smuggler
or dealer would be detected and prosecuted, although sadly, most
got away with it. Now, however, a far more effective and profitable
scam seems to have been developed. One with even less risk of being
caught, and one designed to mislead responsible would-be tortoise
keepers who insist on purchasing only animals bred in captivity.
Very large numbers of tortoises,
both Testudo graeca and Testudo hermanni (including
the extremely vulnerable Western subspecies, Testudo hermanni
hermanni) are flooding the market. These animals are described
as “captive bred” and are accompanied by CITES documents giving
their origin as either ‘Slovenia’ or ‘Lebanon’. Similarly highly
suspect animals accompanied by French, German and Belgian paperwork
are also in circulation.
It is worth examining what ‘captive-bred’
actually means within the context of CITES. To qualify as a ‘captive-bred’
animal, certain very strict conditions must be fulfilled in their
entirety:
- The animals must be born in
a controlled environment.
The parental breeding stock must:
- Have been established in a manner
not detrimental to the survival of the species in the wild
- Must be maintained without addition
of animals from the wild.
- Must be managed in a manner
that has been demonstrated to be capable of reliably producing
second-generation offspring (F2) in a controlled environment.
There are many reasons for concluding
that these particular animals do not meet these requirements. Firstly,
it takes a considerable time to establish a captive group capable
of reliably producing F2 generations. In the case of the species
involved in this instance, one would estimate that it would take
an absolute minimum of 10-12 years. You cannot establish an F2 breeding
program overnight. 15 years would probably be a more realistic timescale
to achieve reliable and consistent F2 breeding with Testudo graeca
and Testudo hermanni. There is absolutely no evidence
that any such programs existed even 5 years ago. Let alone 10
to 15 years ago.
One must also question the origins
of the breeding stock. This is especially worrying in the case of
Testudo hermanni hermanni. This race is under serious pressure,
and populations are declining sharply throughout its very limited
range in Spain, France and Italy. Illegal collecting remains a very
serious problem. The question that must be asked – and answered
– is where did the Testudo hermanni hermanni breeding stock
that is being used in these alleged ‘captive breeding’ operations
come from? Was it legally acquired? Was it acquired without damage
to already fragile wild populations? If not, then a fundamental
breach of the requirements that must be met before a captive-bred
origin can be claimed has occurred.
Similar questions as to the origin
of the parental stock involved in the Lebanese export trade must
also be addressed.
Close examination of many of these
animals also throws considerable doubt that they are genuinely ‘bred
in captivity’ in accordance with the legal requirements for claiming
such an origin. There are forensic clues that suggest otherwise.
One problem is that they are typically heavily infested with parasites,
and many are in very poor condition. Others can be shown to be carriers
of Herpes virus. This is not suggestive of the output of a well-managed
breeding program.
It is perfectly true that the tortoises
is question are being sold accompanied by CITES certificates. Does
this make them legal, then? No. If the basis upon which those certificates
were obtained was false, the certificates are invalid. According
to CITES officials:
“False declarations
of the source ‘bred in captivity’ constitute the second most common
type of fraud”.
Note the use of the term “fraud”.
On the basis of the evidence available to date, that is precisely
what we believe is taking place here, and until reliable evidence
to the contrary is produced we would advise all Tortoise Trust members,
and anyone else who genuinely cares about the conservation of tortoises,
not to part with money for these animals. In all likelihood, your
money - given in good faith – is ending up in the pockets
of a string of shady dealers and middlemen before eventually funding
yet further plundering of wild tortoise populations. If you must
buy a tortoise, do so directly from a person who has bred them personally,
and can demonstrate to you that they have a genuine and viable breeding
colony. All good breeders keep records. Ask to see them. Check that
the breeder has sufficient adults to produce the quantity of offspring
being offered for sale.
We made strenuous efforts to prove
or disprove these claims of a captive-bred origin for these tortoises,
including contacting reputable reptile societies in the regions
of alleged origin. On contacting the Conservation Committee
of the Slovenian Herpetological Society, for example, we were told
that they had “no knowledge” of any commercial captive breeding
programs in their country. Given that it takes many years to establish
such a program, it is, in our view, practically inconceivable that
anything of the sort could exist without that fact being common
knowledge among those who have specialist knowledge of herpetological
activities within the region.
The numbers being cited are also
cause for grave concern. One well-known dealer stated that he could
easily obtain “5,000 tortoises a year with certificates”. There
is, in our opinion, absolutely no way that this quantity could possibly
be bred commercially within Europe. We find it far more interesting
that the two countries most frequently involved, Lebanon and Slovenia,
are better known for the ready availability of fraudulent CITES
documentation than they are for genuine captive-breeding expertise!
It is not only tortoises that are
suffering from this insidious trade. Genuine keepers involved in
captive breeding are seeing their own animals passed over in favor
of these readily available imports. Many people have invested years
of effort in establishing genuine, high quality captive breeding
operations. Such animals cannot be produced cheaply. They certainly
cannot compete with unscrupulous ‘ranching’ operations that in no
way meet the legal definition of ‘captive bred’.
One particular reptile shop was retailing
Mediterranean tortoises complete with CITES certificates stating
that the animals were ‘captive-bred’ in Sierra Leone!!! Astoundingly,
the ‘experts’ at the shop in question failed to note anything unusual
in this!!! Sierra Leone is of course in West Africa, where no Testudo
occur and where there is no significant captive population either.
The DETR (now DEFRA) also missed this frighteningly obvious defect
in the certificates they were signing.
We are astonished that CITES Management
Authorities have accepted these dubious claims for a ‘captive bred’
origin in the first place. All of the evidence available to us (as
well as a good dose of common sense) indicates that something is
seriously wrong. We have made representations to the effect that
we believe that all further import applications for large numbers
of allegedly captive bred tortoises should be declined until such
time as the dealers can produce convincing evidence that such claims
are absolutely genuine. As things stand, the UK CITES management
seems to be demanding that the Tortoise Trust prove beyond doubt
that the claims are false. We do not think that is the right way
to go about this. We also fail to see why not one single dealer
we have approached has been able to provide any information at all
about these so-called ‘captive breeding programs’ in Slovenia or
the Lebanon.
Why? What is the difficulty? If
true, this is something dealers and importers should be very proud
of! Instead, they prefer to evade all relevant questions. Suspicious?
We think so. Action is needed urgently to curb this growing fraud
and increased level of exploitation, or already threatened populations
will be completely wiped out.
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