Once common Madagascar tortoise will be ‘extinct in 20 years’

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com
April 05, 2010 The radiated tortoise, once common throughout Madagascar, faces extinction within the next 20 years due to poaching for its meat and the illegal pet trade, according to biologists with the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Returning from field surveys in southern Madagascar’s spiny forest, they found regions without a single turtle. Locals said that armed bands of poachers were taking truckloads of tortoises to be sold in meat markets. The tortoise is also popular in the underground pet trade, although it is protected by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). “Areas where scores of radiated tortoises could be seen just a few years ago have been poached clean,” said James Deutsch, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Africa Program. “Back then one could hardly fathom that this beautiful tortoise could ever become endangered, but such is the world we live in, and things can—and do—change rapidly.” Once considered the world’s most abundant tortoise with an estimated population in the millions, the radiated tortoise is today classified by the IUCN Red List as Critically Endangered. …

Once common tortoise from Madagascar will be ‘extinct in 20 years’