A. Species
Scientific name: Chelydra serpentina)
Common name(s): Snapping turtle
Global IUCN Red List Threat Status:
B. Location of use
Geographic location(s):
- Arkansas
- Delaware
- Iowa
- Massachusetts
- Minnesota
- Maryland
- North Carolina
- New Jersey
- Pennsylvania
- Virginia
Country/Region: United States of America
C. Scale of assessment
Scale of assessment: National Level
Name/Details of location: Harvest data from Arkansas, Delaware, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia
D. Timescale of use
Start Year: 1999
End Year: 2014
E. Information about the use
How is the wild species sourced?: Wild species sourced from its natural habitat and Wild species sourced from significantly modified habitat
Type of use: Extractive
Practice of use: Targeted fishing harvesting/exploiting or collecting wild aquatic resources
Lethal or non-lethal: Non-Lethal
Does this use involve take/extraction of: The whole entire organism
Purpose(s) of end use: Food and feed
Motivation of use: Income generation from trade (individual/household/community) and Largescale commercial exploitation for trade
Is this use legal or illegal?: Legal under national law
F. Information about the Users
Which stakeholder(s) does the record primarily focus on?: National external
G. Information about the sustainability of use
Is there evidence that the use is having an impact on the target species?: Wild species sourced from its natural habitat and Wild species sourced from significantly modified habitat
Has an assessment (or judgement) of sustainability of the use of the target species from an ecological perspective been recorded?: Yes, considered unsustainable
Details of assessment carried out: The study assembled two datasets to evaluate snapping turtle harvest and export in the US,: federal export data for live snapping turtles, and state-specific commercial harvest records. The study then applies Bayesian inference to analyze the effect of minimum size limit regulations across a range of commercial harvest pressures and to assess the sustainability of the management of turtle harvest.
Brief summary on why the use has been assessed/judged to be sustainable or unsustainable: The study concludes that effective management of snapping turtles and other turtle species under commercial harvest pressure needs to balance short-term gains, in the form of reduced harvest rates, with long-term population viability. Even with the maximal harvest reductions modelled in this study, reductions in the total number of snapping turtles harvested may fall short of the levels required to insure long-term viability of this species.
Has an assessment (or judgement) of sustainability of the use of the target species from an economic perspective been recorded?: Yes, considered unsustainable
Details of assessment carried out: This study
Brief summary on why the use has been assessed/judged to be sustainable or unsustainable: In the short term, fishing turtles in the USA to export to markets in China is highly lucrative; however, the turtle population cannot continue to support this rate of offtake and is liable to collapse, as populations have already done in Asia.
Has an assessment (or judgement) of sustainability of the use of the target species from a social perspective been recorded?: Yes, considered unsustainable
Details of assessment carried out: This study
Brief summary on why the use has been assessed/judged to be sustainable or unsustainable: The study concludes that the harvest of wild populations could be greater than export reports suggest, and aquaculture may not always reduce harvest pressure on wild turtles. Recent population collapses in Asia suggest that turtles may be particularly vulnerable to overharvesting. While the authors do not make an explicit claim of socio-economic unsustainability, they use their analysis to raise concerns on this front. This is also a complex issue: If the question is whether the consumption of turtles in Asia is sustainable, versus the harvesting of supply in the US, then the answer is no, not sustainable, as evidenced by the collapse of wild supply in Asia, on which this study builds, fueling the supply from the USA. Regulatory approaches dedicated to the long term management of this iconic species will need to balance the short term gains, in the form of reduced harvest rates, with long term population viability.
Has an assessment (or judgement) of sustainability of the use of the target species from a human health perspective been recorded?: not recorded
Details of assessment carried out: This study
Brief summary on why the use has been assessed/judged to be sustainable or unsustainable: Not recorded
Has an assessment (or judgement) of sustainability of the use of the target species from an animal health/welfare perspective been recorded?: not recorded
Details of assessment carried out: This study
Brief summary on why the use has been assessed/judged to be sustainable or unsustainable: Not recorded
Recommendations provided in the record to maintain or enhance the sustainability of the use of the target species
Regulatory approaches dedicated to the long term management of this iconic species will need to balance the short term gains, in the form of reduced harvest rates, with long term population viability. The long term demographic consequences of minimum size limits likely reduce population viability. Closure of commercial harvest of snapping turtles is the most effective way to support population persistence, as has been done in 18 states. However, for states that do not close harvest, an alternative strategy may be to add a maximum size limit threshold to existing minimum size regulations, thus creating a slot-limit, to ensure that both large adult breeding individuals and juveniles are protected. In the face of increasing commercial harvest pressure, better understanding of turtle demography is needed to determine whether size limit regulations, be they minimum, maximum, or slot are a potentially effective component in the long term management of this iconic species.
Record source
Information about the record source: scientific_pub
Date of publication/issue/production: 2017-01-01T00:00:00+0000
Source Reference(s):
Date of record entry: 2022-12-07