‘Monumental’ bust in Madagascar triggers effort to save thousands of endangered tortoises

Authorities in Madagascar seized almost 10,000 critically endangered tortoises earlier this month from a house suspected to be a waypoint for funneling them into Asia’s pet trade. The Turtle Survival Alliance is leading the rescue effort, working with its partners to transport the surviving tortoises to a rescue center, Villages des Tortues, in the nearby village of Ifaty. “I don’t think the word overwhelming comes close to describing what the Turtle Survival Alliance is dealing with here,” Rick Hudson, the NGO’s president, said in a statement from the Georgia Aquarium and the Wildlife Conservation Society. “We are in ‘an all hands on deck’ mentality right now.” Nearly 10,000 of the critically endangered tortoises were found in an empty home in southwestern Madagascar. Image courtesy of the Turtle Survival Alliance. Local law enforcement responded to what Le Parisien newspaper called “a dreadful smell of feces” in the city of Toliara on April 10. They found that several floors of an apparently vacant house were full of 9,888 starving and dehydrated radiated tortoises climbing on top of each other and through their excrement. Radiated tortoises (Astrochelys radiata), named for the striking star pattern that adorns their shells, are found only on Madagascar. Their range on the island is only about 60 percent of what it once was, according to the IUCN, and their popularity as pets in Asia and the United States has led to increased poaching pressure. As a result, radiated tortoise numbers are down by more than 80 percent in…

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