Wildlife

Tortoises & Freshwater Turtles

Why WCS?

On Our Strategies

Assist Local Law Enforcement

In Vietnam and China, WCS is actively involved in training and supporting wildlife police and customs officials in the monitoring of the illegal wildlife trade. Specific attention is given to species identification. In Cambodia, WCS's regular patrols in the western plains confiscate turtles and tortoises as they are attempted to be smuggled into Vietnam.

Lead Patrols to Reduce Poaching

In Myanmar, WCS protects the nests of the last ten Burmese roofed turtles left in the wild. This has resulted in over 600 juveniles being produced. Releases of the first head-started turtles began in 2015 and they were being monitored with radio-telemetry for dispersal and survival. In Cambodia, WCS protects the last population of the Southern River terrapin. In 2015, head-started juveniles were released with acoustic transmitters to monitor the movement of the turtles between freshwater habitats and the brackish mangrove forests of the river's mouth.

Work with Local Communities

In Colombia, over a thousand hatchling Magdalena River Turtles were released as part of a community effort to protect the turtles' nests from floodwaters. And in Ecuador, WCS works with local indigenous communities to manage five artificial nesting beaches for the giant Amazonian river turtle. More than 2,000 turtles have been returned to the wild to date.

At Our Facilities, Work to Maintain Critically Endangered Turtles and Tortoises

It is the hope that WCS can link the turtle and tortoise breeding programs at the city zoos with the field programs in the near future, particularly for species that are functionally extinct in the wild and where captive breeding may be the only means of preventing the extinction of the species.

Provide Veterinary Care to Confiscated Turtles

In 2015, the WCS Health Program was involved in the largest single species confiscation of critically endangered freshwater turtles on the island of Palawan in the Philippines. There they helped provided veterinary care to almost 4,000 Philippine Forest Turtles.