Cooter Might Soon Be Off The Menu
It's the same old battle: conservationists vs. fishermen. This time, the controversy surrounds the soft-shell turtle. Conservationists and Gov. Charlie Crist want to stop the harvesting of wild turtles, while people who do exactly that for a living are, naturally, a little upset. The former group is issuing alarmist warnings about possible population decline, while the latter group points out that there are turtles aplenty:
In a recent letter, Crist urged the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to make it illegal to take any freshwater turtles from the wild.While that is encouraging, the problem is that the population of turtle-eating people in Asia is huge. Scientists have very little data about current Florida turtle populations, but they do know about depleted Asian turtle populations, and those numbers are not encouraging. What is encouraging is knowing that someone has noticed this and started to take action early, well before something like a complete ban on turtle harvesting is necessary."With the world market demand for freshwater turtles, it is clear that the commercial harvest of our wild populations of turtles could result in long-term impacts very quickly," he wrote in a letter to commission chairman Rodney Barreto. "According to many turtle biologists, if the (commission) is not vigilant and does not act swiftly we could be in grave danger of irreparable damage to our turtle population."
Those who have fished for turtles in and around Lake Okeechobee for decades have a visceral, if simple, reaction to Crist's call for conservation: Hogwash.
"He's ignorant. No offense to the governor, but there's no other word for it: ignorant," said William Shockley, who grew up in Okeechobee as the son and grandson of commercial fishermen.
An electrical contractor by trade, Shockley still fishes for turtles to help his 16-year-old son make spending money by selling the critters that fetch between $1.25 and $1.50 a pound.
"I can take you to places near 20-mile bend where there's more turtles than there are people in Palm Beach County," he said.
Conservationists call for ban on freshwater turtle catches [Palm Beach Post]
China Turns to Florida After Eating Turtles to Near-Extinction [MP: South Florida]
