Is it OK to eat turtles in Cambodia?

1/29/2015 10:28:58 AM

Here’s a recent article from the Phnom Penh Post:

Dealing in turtles is mostly illegal in Cambodia, where six of the 14
turtle species are endangered, some critically. The only legitimate
options are to import them or buy from the single licensed farm. But a
thriving trade that stretches from small provincial restaurants in
Cambodia to Hong Kong fish markets makes them a valuable commodity and
poaching abounds.

Earlier this month Wildlife Conservation Society, along with local
authorities, rescued 23 turtles, many of which were either endangered
or threatened, in Mondulkiri. “It is most likely that they were on the
way to Vietnam, as they were taken only a few kilometres from the
Vietnamese border,” said Alex Diment, senior technical coordinator for
Wildlife Conservation Society.

Once on a farm, most of which are licensed and some with permission to
breed rare species, poached animals can be “laundered” by mingling
with their farmed counterparts. Then they are smuggled onward to
markets in Hong Kong, mainland China and other parts of Asia-Pacific.

“They might be breeding a small number of [legal] animals, but it is
not meeting the demand and accounting for all their sales,” said Tim
McCormack, program coordinator at the Hanoi-based Asia Turtle
Programme. The supply gap is bridged through poaching, he said.

“It is very difficult to regulate these farms because it is not easy
to identify individual animals in the farm unless you have access to
people who know the species [apart].”

For this reason, he argues, it is best not to consume any turtles.
“You could argue that by simply providing an available source of
turtles for consumption it gives the impression that it is okay to
consume all turtle species,” he said.

Even the proliferation of commonly sold Asiatic soft shell turtles may
threaten at least one endangered species, said Sun Yoeung, project
leader of Conservation International. At his Mekong Turtle
Conservation Centre in Kratie, Yoeung works with a monastery to rescue
and release Cantor’s giant soft shell turtles, thought to have been
extinct in Cambodia until a population was discovered in 2007.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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