{"id":36287,"date":"2014-04-29T11:58:17","date_gmt":"2014-04-29T16:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=36287"},"modified":"2014-04-29T11:58:17","modified_gmt":"2014-04-29T16:58:17","slug":"is-the-increasingly-rare-alligator-snapping-turtle-next-on-endangered-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/04\/29\/is-the-increasingly-rare-alligator-snapping-turtle-next-on-endangered-list\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Increasingly Rare Alligator Snapping Turtle Next on Endangered List?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lee<\/a>

Lee Sanders\/NTI\/Landov<\/p>

A female Alligator Snapping Turtle at the West Midlands Safari Park in Bewdley, Worcestershire. The Alligator Snapping Turtle is one of the largest freshwater turtles in the world, and was recently found to be not one but three distinct species.<\/p><\/div>\n

A new study places one of Texas\u2019 strangest\u2014and most imposing\u2014reptiles in a very precarious position.<\/p>\n

Published in Zootaxa<\/em>, the study<\/a> confirms that the alligator snapping turtle<\/a>, thought to be just a single species, is actually three genetically distinct species. Alligator snapping turtles, dinosaurian creatures that range throughout river systems in the American Southeast, are the largest freshwater turtles in the world, and the findings put Texas\u2019 already at-risk turtles and their neighboring cousins in further danger.<\/p>\n

Though the population split between the three species isn\u2019t equal, simply put, there are now fewer turtles of each species to stand up to pressures from illegal harvesting and habitat loss.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe major concern moving forward is protecting riverine habitats and wetlands. You can give them all the protection you want against harvest, but if you don\u2019t protect their habitats then it\u2019s not much good,\u201d the paper\u2019s lead author Travis Thomas, a biologist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, says.<\/p>\n

\u201cRivers in general are facing an uphill battle. Turtles in general are also facing an uphill battle, especially large turtles. So what does that tell you about a riverine turtle?\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas\u2019 paper looked at morphology, genetics and the fossil record studies of alligator snapping turtles to conclude the existence of the two new species.
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause those animals in the eastern part of its range are now a separate species, that means that the turtles that are left in Texas are more endangered than we once thought, because now they don\u2019t range all the way from Texas to Florida,\u201d Collette Adkins Giese, senior reptile and amphibian attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity<\/a>, says.<\/p>\n

The Center for Biological Diversity originally petitioned the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service<\/a>\u00a0in July 2012 to protect alligator snapping turtles under the Endangered Species Act, but Adkins Giese says that this new research means there is a stronger case for listing the turtles than ever before.<\/p>\n

But, because alligator snapping turtles are already protected<\/a> under Texas laws, Texas A&M herpetologist Toby Hibbitts<\/a> believes that the findings will not have much impact on populations in East Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of the long-term stability of their populations in the state, it seems pretty likely that there hasn\u2019t been much change\u2026in the last 20 years for sure,\u201d Hibbitts said.<\/p>\n

Texas classifies alligator snapping turtles as \u201cthreatened,\u201d and lists the threats to the species as reservoir construction, illegal or unreported exploitation for domestic and international meat markets, and pollution.<\/p>\n

Because they can grow over 220 pounds, alligator snapping turtles were heavily targeted for turtle meat and turtle soup in the 1970s and 1980s. Though commercial harvesting has been outlawed in most states, the turtles are still threatened by the pet trade and recreational harvesting.<\/p>\n

The turtles don\u2019t reach sexual maturity until they are between 11 and 13 years old, and reproduce slowly over their century-long lifespans, so any harvest can be particularly detrimental to the species.<\/p>\n

\u201cScientists have shown that there really is no way to sustainably harvest them. Even just removing a couple of individuals can cause a population to crash,\u201d Adkins Giese says.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services is legally bound to issue an initial finding on petitions (an assessment on whether a status review of a species is needed) no more than 90 days after they\u2019re filed, but has yet to make a decision on the original alligator snapping turtle petition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re confident that we\u2019ll get a positive finding, especially considering that we\u2019ve got such a strong case now, now that there\u2019s three individual species,\u201d Adkins Giese says, \u201cIt is a long process \u2026 but we\u2019re hoping that with this new research, it gives the agency the nudge it needs to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Tom McKenzie with the agency’s Southeast Region said the species won\u2019t be considered until 2016 or 2017 at the earliest, if the agency even decides to look at it, because Fish & Wildlife Services is extremely backlogged.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Thomas and his fellow researchers are trying to pinpoint Florida alligator snapping turtle populations. They finished an intensive sampling project of the Suwannee alligator snapping turtle in the fall, and just began sampling the other new species, though he said it is unlikely they will conduct population samples on the species Texas has.<\/p>\n

Hibbitts worked on a sampling study of turtles in Texas more than a decade ago, and says that since the animals rarely leave river systems, and stay deeper down in murky water, it is difficult to get an idea of just how many there might be in Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in the sites where we were trapping them all the time — and I worked on a property that had a bunch of them on it — I\u2019ve only ever seen one that wasn\u2019t on the inside of a trap,\u201d Hibbitts said. \u201cYou can go your whole life being the average, every-day citizen that doesn\u2019t fish, and you\u2019ll never see one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new study places one of Texas\u2019 strangest\u2014and most imposing\u2014reptiles in a very precarious position. Published in Zootaxa, the study confirms that the alligator snapping turtle, thought to be just a single species, is actually three genetically distinct species. Alligator snapping turtles, dinosaurian creatures that range throughout river systems in the American Southeast, are the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[132,383,382,176],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36287"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36287"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36308,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36287\/revisions\/36308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}