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Racing Turtles to Extinction in Minnesota

From Animal Rights Coalition
April 2023

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.

captured Turtles

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.

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