Tracking the Tortoise Trade

A radiated tortoise
© Wildlife Conservation Society

Imagine you are an inspector from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. You have been assigned to a team that works on the international trade in radiated tortoises. Before you can get out on the street to try to stop illegal trade, you need to familiarize yourself with the trade. These are some of the things you need to know in order to tackle this problem. Who profits the most? What percentage of the tortoises die in transit? How many tortoises does a Malagasy villager have to catch to make a living? Is this amount a reasonable harvest for the tortoise populations?

Watch the points and arrows on the map above to follow the path of a radiated tortoise from its natural habitat in Southern Madagascar to an internet ad you found from a seller in Louisiana. Gather all the important information from the map. Pay close attention to the price at which each person sells the tortoise, and also the percentage of tortoises that die in transit from one place to the next. You can keep track of the numbers in the chart in your student guide or you can download an excel chart to help you keep track.

Use the information you just gathered to answer the questions below in your student guide.

1. What percent of tortoises that are caught in Madagascar survive to be sold on the internet in the US?
2. How many tortoises have to be caught in Madagascar to get one tortoise to the pet store shelf?
3. How much money does each party make for every 100 tortoises that are caught in Madagascar? Remember some of them die in transit.
4. Who profits the most?
5. How many tortoises does a villager have to catch each year to make a good living if a good living is $3000 a year?

Thought Questions:

1. Considering that tortoises have very low reproductive rates and that populations of tortoises in Madagascar are rapidly declining, what effect do you think continued poaching will have on the wild populations of tortoises and on the people of Madagascar?
2. Many Malagasy reptiles are not easy to breed outside of their natural habitat. The government might set up centers where people can breed the reptiles, then sell them abroad to earn money. How could an exporter or consumer know whether the animals in front of you were really ‘captive bred’ or taken from the wild? Could genetics help?
3. Madagascar has prohibited the export of all tortoises from the country, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) prohibits international trade in these species. Why do you think they are still being poached and illegally exported? What drives this trade?