Glenn Bartley

Trey,

I was truly curious to see what you were planning to do with the Box Turtles you caught so I asked my question. As opposed to some other(s), such as Devan, who have voiced opinion(s) in this thread, I have nothing against collecting resources from the wild, nor anything against making a profit from such collection, nor anything against captive breeding programs of wild caught animals so long as all of these activities are legal and ethical. I do however, based upon your posts, have something to say about the way in which you seem to regard collection of Box Turtles. This is not an attack, merely a discussion based upon things you have already said, please let’s keep it at that.

You claim your activities are legal, and I will not dispute your claim without some sort of indicator that they are otherwise. Yet despite the presumed legality of your actions regarding the collection of every Box Turtle you encountered as described in your recent posts (or at least everyone that you have told us about to date in this thread if I read correctly) your collection of these turtles is, in my opinion, wantonly undertaken. From what I can understand so far, based upon this thread, you have caught and kept everything you have seen with regards to Box Turtles on your recent herp cruises. Then you turn around and, in my opinion, rather self satisfyingly defend your actions as legal because someone else disagreed with them. Your actions may be legal in South Carolina, however, in my opinion they are not at all ethical if they are in fact indicative of your attitude toward collection of Box Turtles on the whole.

Once upon a time it was legal to collect Box Turtles and many other herps here in the State of New York. Today you can no longer collect Box Turtles legally in New York. NY has granted the Box Turtle game-animal status with no open season and with a possession limit of zero. In other words it is illegal to possess them (there may be exceptions for scientific purposes, rehabs and so forth). Some of the main reasons it was necessary for this status being placed upon Box Turtles was loss of the population due to habitat destruction, over predation by raccoons (who had lost other natural prey due to loss of suitable habitat for their other prey animals), and loss of the population due to LEGAL collection (which wound up being over collection). Thousands of Box Turtles were collected, each year for many years, for shipment to Europe where the Box Turtle was one of the species of US herps in highest demand. In fact tens of thousand were shipped each year, and I personally witnessed the seizure of a very large shipment by Customs officials many years ago for some type of customs violation. Others were kept as pets here in the state, others were killed by cars, by lawn mowers, by racoons, by other predators and by habitat destruction and so forth - yet over coillection was one of the biggest threats they faced because it was legal and was not limited. It is a pity that the state did not act sooner, and give the Box Turtle game-animal status sooner. Had they done so there would have been a plethora of funding for their protection from conservation monies gathered from all activities dealing with hunting and fishing excise taxes and license fees. There would possibly also have been a limit placed upon their take sooner, which may quite well have allowed people to still be collecting them and keeping them in accordance with well enforced game laws, such as there are limits placed upon other takeable game animals all of which are thriving. These other game animals even thrive in the face of habitat destruction in many areas, because much has been done to preserve at least pockets of habitat in certain areas. About the only thing that really threatens these other game animals today is illegal taking (poaching).

If you continue to take each and every Box Turtle you see, or even a sizeable percentage of those you encounter, you could potentially wipe out the viable breeding population in your area single handedly. While you may scoff at this, and snicker thinking this sounds crazy, allow me to assure you that with a species such as the Box Turtle which is already under pressure from such things as habitat destruction, heavy predation, and competition with other native species, such could conceivably happen and they could become extirpated in your area. Now take into consideration that Joe Blow who lives around the bend from you also goes out each time it rains to collect Box Turtles, and the prospect of their extirpation is doubled. If John and Jane Doe do likewise, it is now at least 4 times as bad a threat; in fact it maybe a higher multiple than that because the lower limit of the viable breeding population may have been reached by this time, and extirpation may become inevitable without outside assistance. Add to this the hits by cars, the take by raccoons (and other predators) of the young and the eggs, and loss of habitat and other losses, well the potential for disaster is increased by an unknown factor. If, on the other hand, you collect a couple to a few Box Turtles a season, this maybe another story, it may be tolerable by the local population – but bear in mind it takes years for the young to reach sexual maturity and you are apparently taking sexually mature adults, and apparently some of them may be gravid adults. You are, in my opinion, not in effect removing only five animals from the population, you are potentially removing them and their offspring. You in effect then are also removing their (both the adults’ and the as yet unhatched young’s) future breeding potential and therefore their potential for adding more individuals to the natural setting. Again things have potentially been increased by an unknown multiple of X.

There are other alternatives than collecting each that you see. I would think that picking up a Box Turtle from the road to place it in the brush at the side of the road was not the intended target of laws against relocating wildlife of which you have spoken. And before you rant against me as you have Devan, please bear in mind yes I have had some dealings with the Department of Environmental Conservation here in NY on this subject, and I am a board member on my local herp society and have taken part in conservation effort. I also am an avid hunter and fisherman, and collector of wild herps when legal and ethical. I do not agree with the opinion of Devan that collecting of wild animals is not a good thing. Yet I fully believe that it could be harmful, and unethical, to collect each and every specimen I see in a day’s herping or hunting or fishing even if I am legally allowed to do so – especially if I do this on multiple occasions. I also believe that my making excuses for my actions, had my actions been to collect each animal I encountered, would be little more than a self serving manner of saving face in light of the well deserved criticism I likely would face for having carried out such collecting. Heck I have pulled animals out of harm’s way on the roads and kept some of them, but I certainly have never kept every example of a species that I encountered in one day on a road, or in one sweep of the road, when I encountered multiple specimens. I have removed many more animals from the road to the safety of the off road area than I have collected, and have simply observed many, many more.

While the particular animals you caught may do well in captivity, and may have avoided being hit by cars (although you cannot know with any amount of certainty that these particular animals would have been hit unless such danger was imminently upon them) you have removed them from their natural surroundings. While this may not necessarily be detrimental to the individual turtles that you caught in the short term, it may have a marked detrimental effect upon the breeding population in the area. I know of what I speak from personal experience with inadvertent but yet possible over collection of Garter Snakes from a farm that was privately owned property on which I had permission and legal status to hunt herps. In two seasons, over only a few visits (3 or 4 to the farm each of those 2 years) I collected about 1/10 to 1/8 of what I saw in Garter Snakes. (Note I said of what I saw not of the entire population, and what I saw was likely much less than anywhere near the entire population.) Over the next few years the population of Garter Snakes on the farm declined dramatically. Of course I cannot say for sure that the decline was due to my collection, but I will always have that albatross around the neck of my conscience. Happily, I realized what may have been happening, and I held off on my collection of GS over the next couple to few years and the population began to increase markedly after about the third year. The thing that always amazed me was that there had been plenty of Garter Snakes left after I took what I had caught, and I caught both males and females, and no one else was taking any from the area, yet the population declined markedly. I also witnessed a great decline in the number of Smooth Green Snakes, not due to collection but probably due to mowing and use of certain pesticides by the farm owner over about a 2 or 3 year period. Their number also increased after a couple to a few years once certain practices had been changed in part to accommodate them. All of these actions were legal, yet possibly could have been unethical if we had been aware of the possible outcome of our actions (which at the time we had not been aware) because they resulted in the decline of these species.

I find it hard to fathom that in today’s world, you would not realize that over collection of any species is unethical. I also find it hard to believe that your collection of Box Turtles as described by you, and your apparent attitude about collection of herps, possibly would seem unethical to at least some, and possibly to many including yourself. To me your attitude and your collection practices seem as being at least indicative of over collection of a species for personal gain.

You said this: You may be doing an injustice if you catch all that you see, that is my point! Of course, you don't have to take all of them, not even the majority of them. In fact to establish a breeding colony you would need only a small handful and then leave it at that. They live a long time. Of course once you establish a breeding colony there are new options open to you besides just selling them, this does some to maintain but little to increase wild populations. Since you claim to be able to do whatever you want with the hatched eggs (I imagine you mean with the young turtles): well, then why don’t you release some to the wild.

Release to the wild, of captive bred specimens is often carried out by state game biologists or under their supervision. I would imagine that if you could get permission to catch and breed wildlife, then you could also get necessary permissions to breed and then release at least some of the progeny back into nature. (Please don’t give me a lecture on spreading disease to natural populations by doing such; I realize the potential for such but I also realize that wildlife programs across the country routinely release captive bred wildlife back into natural habitat without rampant outbreaks of disease that was introduced by the captive bred animals. Medical examinations of such animals are routinely carried out by wildlife biologists and wildlife veterinarians.) These programs have for the great part (in recent decades) helped to increase wild populations of our wildlife. Some such releases are done on an annual basis and have been done so for many decades. Your taking part in such a program would quite possibly do much to insure the continued wild populations of the species in your area that is otherwise possibly being threatened by over collection.

Just my opinion on the ideas expressed in this thread so far, some food for thought. You see Box Turtles are probably my favorite herp, and now I cannot keep them. I would hate to see that happen to others across the country, just as I hated to see it happen to my son, because of overzealous field collecting by they who hide behing the mere legality of their actions with little regard, in my opinion, to potential outcomes of their possibly unethical actions.

Best regards,
Glenn B