- Authorities in Madagascar have seized 144 radiated tortoises from poachers in the country’s south, in the biggest tortoise trafficking bust in the country since 2018.
- Radiated tortoises (Astrochelys radiata), a critically endangered species, are illegal to collect or trade; most of the 144 were adults targeted for their meat.
- The tortoises are being cared for at a recovery facility, but may not be returned to the wild anytime soon; trafficking has increased so much in recent years that conservation groups engaged in the rescue of tortoises have stopped all wild releases.
- Experts warn of a likely increase in poaching in Madagascar’s south, where radiated tortoises are found, as a result of the economic slump triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.
Authorities in Madagascar have arrested three poachers carrying 144 radiated tortoises, the largest known seizure of its kind in almost two years in the country. They recovered the tortoises, which are critically endangered and illegal to collect or trade, from an outrigger sailing canoe along the country’s southwest coast last month, and have sent them to a recovery facility in the region.
The arrest story was “worthy of a true crime series,” according to Madagascar National Parks (MNP), a semi-public agency that manages both a marine and a terrestrial park in the vicinity. On June 19, a community patrol group in the southwest village of Andomotse informed MNP that they’d seen men from outside the village carrying tortoises stuffed in sacks. That evening, the suspected poachers set sail in two canoes, heading north. MNP officers followed them in a motorboat and, with the help of gendarmes (national police), managed to stop one of the canoes after a three-hour chase. The second canoe could not be found.
This incident shows that illegal hunting of Madagascar’s tortoises continues, said Herilala Randriamahazo, national coordinator for Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA), the NGO that runs the facility now holding the tortoises. “The poaching activity is ongoing,” he told Mongabay.
Recent seizures
Radiated tortoises (Astrochelys radiata) are endemic to southwest Madagascar but have been introduced to other parts of the island and to nearby island nations. Like other tortoises in Madagascar, such as the critically endangered ploughshare (Astrochelys yniphora), their numbers have declined because of habitat loss and poaching.
Poachers seek out radiated tortoises both because they are valuable on the illegal pet market abroad and because their meat is highly prized in Madagascar. (Ploughshare meat, on the other hand, is not sought after.) Poachers view babies as better for the pet trade — easier to fit into suitcases — and adults as better for the illicit local food trade.
Tortoise poaching has dramatically increased in Madagascar in recent years. In 2018, Malagasy authorities made the two largest seizures in the country’s history. In April 2018, they seized nearly 10,000 radiated tortoises from a house in the city of Toliara. The tortoises were malnourished and dehydrated, and more than 500 died in the following week, despite the efforts of veterinarians. Six months later, local law enforcement seized more than 7,000 radiated tortoises in Tongobory, a small town in the same region. In both cases, almost all of the tortoises were babies or juveniles. Together, the two cases involved more tortoises than were seized in Madagascar from 2000 to 2014, according to Nanie Ratsifandrihamanana, WWF’s Madagascar country director.
The first 2018 case led to the prosecution of three people, including the owner of the house where the tortoises were held; the court sentenced each of them to six years in prison and fined each of them 100 million ariary (roughly $26,000 today). The second 2018 seizure led to the prosecution of three people, each of whom was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined 1 million ariary (about $260).
The Toliara branch of Madagascar’s anti-corruption agency took interest in the two cases, but the enforcement breakthrough that conservationists were hoping for did not materialize: no major traffickers were charged. Prosecutors went after “low level players (eg guards, collectors) and not those who are commissioning and funding the trafficking,” Ratsifandrihamanana told Mongabay in an email. The anti-corruption agency did not respond to a request for comment.
Incidents over the past year show that poaching has continued. In March, gendarmes discovered poachers with 250 kilograms (550 pounds) of tortoise meat and a few live tortoises in Androimpano commune (county) in the southwest; they caught and jailed one poacher, but his collaborators escaped by running into the spiny forest. In September 2019, 23 shells of juvenile radiated tortoises were found in Itampolo commune, also in the southwest, according to Randriamahazo of TSA, which is based in South Carolina and works in about a dozen countries.
Randriamahazo said the discovery of the juvenile shells was disturbing because it indicated that poachers were becoming less selective. In recent years, finding both adult tortoises for meat and babies for the pet trade has become more difficult, so poachers seem more willing to seek out middle-sized juveniles for both purposes, he said.
“It’s because populations are declining,” Randriamahazo said. “It’s very scary.”
Though stuffing baby tortoises in suitcases makes headlines and is a major problem, the bushmeat trade is at least as damaging for radiated tortoises, experts say. That’s because removing adults from the wild is especially costly for the species. Radiated and ploughshare tortoises reach maturity at about age 20, and can reproduce for many decades thereafter — some live more than a century. Adult females are “super-precious,” Richard Lewis, Madagascar country director at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, a group based on Jersey in the British Isles, told Mongabay.
On the other hand, baby tortoises are not as likely to mature and reproduce; in the wild, many die young due to animal predation and insufficient food and water during the Malagasy winter. This is why Durrell brings tortoise eggs and babies into captivity and, if conditions are right, releases them back into the wild at about age 10, Lewis said.
Caring for seized tortoises, which often have health problems from overcrowding or starvation, is another matter, and not necessarily helpful to the long-term prospects of the species, some experts say. Facilities that hold seized tortoises are more about animal welfare than conservation, Miguel Pedrono, a Madagascar-based conservation biologist at CIRAD, a French research organization and longtime critic of tortoise captivity programs, told Mongabay. He said it’s “useless or even counterproductive” to spend resources looking after seized tortoises, from a strictly conservation standpoint. Holding tortoises in captivity can divert from anti-poaching efforts, lead to captive populations spreading diseases to wild populations, and invite corruption, such as when guards sell tortoises to foreigners, Pedrono said.
In response, TSA president Rick Hudson said his NGO has moved to make anti-poaching more of a focus and has applied for funding to address “inconsistencies in the judicial process” and build “enforcement capacity” in Madagascar.
“We have one critic in particular who doesn’t like captive programs and believe me we are not enthusiastic either about having to maintain 24,000 live tortoises,” Hudson said. “But when you [are] presented with that many sick and dying tortoises, what do you do? Simply ignore them? We play the hand that we are dealt.”
Hudson also said that pathologists screened tortoises from the first major 2018 seizure for pathogenic viruses and all tests were negative. He said the tortoises most likely to carry such pathogens are those that have left the country and been returned.
The latest seizure
Experts presume the poachers in the most recent seizure took the tortoises from Tsimanampesotse National Parkor its surroundings. Much of the nearby marine area is also protected within Nosy Ve–Androka National Park. While collecting tortoises, the poachers had parked their canoes in Andomotse, which is in Itampolo commune and near both parks. (The arrest took place further north, in Beheloke commune, after the boat chase.)
Authorities sent the 144 seized tortoises to Lavavolo Tortoise Center, a TSA facility in Itampolo. Lavavolo is one of six TSA facilities in Madagascar; it holds more than 14,000 tortoises, following the two large 2018 seizures.
Most of the 144 seized tortoises are adults — 39 adult males, 89 adult females, and 16 juveniles — which indicates they were targeted as bushmeat, not for the pet trade. An uptick in bushmeat hunting often occurs just before the June 26 Independence Day celebrations in Madagascar, Randriamahazo said. The poachers likely planned to bring the animals to the city of Toliara, where radiated tortoise meat is sometimes served as a delicacy in holiday meals, he said.
Most of the tortoises seem to be in good health, though one has failed to respond to veterinary care, Randriamahazo said.
The long-term viability of the species is the larger concern. Tortoise trafficking has increased so much in recent years that groups such as TSA and Durrell have stopped releasing the animals into the wild. Durrell suspended its ploughshare reintroduction program, which had run for nine years, in 2015. TSA had hoped to reintroduce tortoises into the wild of Madagascar this year, but no longer plans to.
Experts worry that the social and economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic could put more pressure on tortoises and their habitats. Southern Madagascar faces frequent droughts and poverty levels higher than the country as a whole, and any economic downturn could leave its people in a particularly precarious condition.
“In the field, we are already seeing the signs of a major socio-economic crisis, communities have started … reducing their daily food intake to cope with the situation,” WWF’s Ratsifandrihamanana wrote to Mongabay, referring to southern Madagascar. “In times of crisis, forests and their resources, including tortoises, are the last resort for survival; the risk of increased poaching is very real.”
Banner image: A captive critically endangered radiated tortoise (Astrochelys radiata). Image by Rebecca Kessler.
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