WildEarth Guardians

Monday, June 9, 2014
Imperiled Tortoises Take Step Toward Legal Protections

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Will Consider Endangered Species Act Listing for Madagascar Natives
Contact: Taylor Jones (720) 443-2615

Additional Contact:
Mike Harris, Friends of Animals: (720) 841-0400 or michaelharris@friendsofanimals.org

Washington, DC – In response to joint petitions from WildEarth Guardians (Guardians) and Friends of Animals (FoA), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) recognized the serious threats to spider tortoises and flat-tailed tortoises and moved the species closer to listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Both species are native to Madagascar and are mainly threatened by collection for the international pet trade.

“These tortoises need Endangered Species Act listing to win the race against extinction,” said Taylor Jones, Endangered Species Advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “The pet trade will wipe out these beautiful tortoises in the wild if we fail to act soon.”

A single spider tortoise can fetch up to $1,000 in the pet trade. Their high commercial value makes the tortoises targets for collectors. Flat-tailed tortoises are similarly imperiled; collection from the wild has already eliminated flat-tailed tortoise populations in the southwestern part of their range. Regulations, including listing on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species  (CITES) Appendix I, have failed to prevent illegal harvest and trade in the tortoises. To make matters worse, both flat-tailed tortoises and spider tortoises are losing their already limited habitat to deforestation.

“This is a positive first step toward protecting these species from those with a gruesome appetite for exotic pets and ensuring their survival in Madagascar” said Mike Harris, Director of the Wildlife Law Program at Friends of Animals.

ESA protections would help eliminate the part played by the United States in the illegal trade in these tortoises, and focus attention on their plight. Listing species under the Endangered Species Act is a proven effective safety net: more than 99 percent of plants and animals listed persist today. The law is especially important as a bulwark against the current extinction crisis; plants and animals are disappearing at a rate much higher than the natural rate of extinction due to human activities. Listing species outside the U.S. can both protect the species domestically by preventing illegal imports, and help focus U.S. resources toward enforcement of international regulation and recovery of the species.