Turtle traffickers continue to target South Carolina

COLUMBIA --- The Chinese are feasting on South Carolina's turtle population.

They have devoured their own turtles half a world away and have turned their appetite to the Palmetto State, waging "open warfare" on the South Carolina's unprotected turtle populations, according to Steve Bennett, a herpetologist for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.

But a bill that cleared a House committee this week, H. 3121, tries to protect spiny softshells, cooters and yellowbelly turtles by fining someone $200 for taking 10 of the freshwater animals out of the state.

The reason the state's turtles are being seized and funneled into China's exploding food market is that the life cycle of the animals is so long and their offspring are so few that it's impractical to farm them domestically, said Scott Pfaff, curator of herpetology for the Riverbanks Zoo & Garden in Columbia.

With no limits or regulations in place, commercial harvesters easily pluck them from South Carolina's waterways.

And it will have long-term effects, warn experts.

"If people go across the Savannah River, for example, going into Augusta or Aiken ... if someone were to go out there and took all those turtles in a trapping session, they're gone," said Kurt Buhlmann, a scientist at the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory in Aiken.

"You're not going to see turtles there next year."

South Carolina is particularly attractive to turtle traffickers who supply Chinese markets because, unlike the rest of the region, the unregulated Palmetto State is considered a turtle free-for-all.

North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana and Florida all either have some protections in place or have restrictions in the works, said Pfaff. Georgia is similarly unregulated, like South Carolina, except that it protects many more individual turtle species, he said.

Bennett noted that hunters and fishermen in South Carolina must purchase licenses from the state, but it costs nothing to take the South Carolina's turtles.

"This is being exploited," by the Chinese, he said. "With turtles, it's just open warfare."

Reach Sarita Chourey at (803) 727-4257 or sarita.chourey@morris.com.