An article from the Society for Conservation Biology notes that only about 40% of relocated wild turtles survive. Especially with stress as a factor, many turtles are still dying. Minnesota Herpetological Society’s conservation committee chair, Christopher Smith, also shared his thoughts on the turtle races. He said turtle populations face many threats, and any increase to mortality will impact the population.
It isn’t a well-known fact, but every year thousands of turtles are taken
from the wild for use in hundreds of turtle races at county fairs and other
festivals. In Minnesota, where we have documented 36 turtle races, Painted
Turtles are the primary turtles used—although there is evidence that
endangered species are also showing up from time to time.
Alex Heeb from the non-profit, the Turtle Race Task Force, said "Our best
guess at this point is that turtle races are impacting about 25,000 wild
turtles a year nationwide (mostly box turtles and painted turtles, but also
Blanding's, Wood and Spotted turtles), so getting some hard numbers and
bringing attention to this issue could have a real impact on turtle
conservation.
An article from the Society for Conservation Biology notes that only about
40% of relocated wild turtles survive. Especially with stress as a factor,
many turtles are still dying.
Minnesota Herpetological Society’s conservation committee chair, Christopher
Smith, also shared his thoughts on the turtle races. He said turtle
populations face many threats, and any increase to mortality will impact the
population.
“Reptiles have well-established home territories,” he said. “When people
catch and move turtles outside of their home territories and release them
outside of home territories, this increases the level of turtle mortality.”
Smith continued, saying that turtles brought together from different
environments might infect one another with diseases, increasing the risk of
mortality even more. Then, if these infected turtles are released back into
the wild, they’ll continue to spread that disease among other wild turtles,
impacting the turtle population throughout the area.