Sea Turtles released in Vietnam

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Police in Vietnam free hundreds of endangered sea turtles *Posted

:*Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:53:27 GMT

*Author :* DPA *Category :* Nature (Environment)

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Hanoi - Vietnamese police removed 849 sea turtles from a fish-farming

cage of a man who was illegally raising them and released them into a nearby

marine preserve, a police official said Friday. The man had bought the sea

turtles several at a time from fishermen, said Vo Duc Thang, chief of

policein the coastal city of Nha Trang. He had raised them to maturity

in a

fish-farming pen in a local bay, intending to sell them for their meat and

shells.

 

Thang said the turtles, which weighed a total of 6 tons, had been

transported to the nearby Nha Trang Marine Protected Area and released

shortly after police discovered them Wednesday.

 

The turtles belonged to the species ertemochelys imbricate, also known as

the hawksbill turtle. It is considered critically endangered by the World

Conservation Union. Privately raising or selling it is prohibited under the

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES.

 

International wildlife and trafficking organizations said it was also

illegal to raise or sell sea turtles in Vietnam but that the practice was

not unheard of.

 

Nguyen Hoang Linh, a staff member at a project that promotes environmentally

sustainable livelihoods around the Nha Trang marine preserve, said a related

project on the southern island of Phu Quoc had found and released four sea

turtles being raised in a cage earlier this year.

 

Linh said such turtles were usually netted as by-catch by fishermen looking

for other species.

 

Police and wildlife officials said they had never heard of a previous case

involving so many turtles.

 

Wildlife experts said they were not familiar enough with the case to say

whether it was advisable to release 849 turtles raised in captivity into a

single nature area. Police said they had no choice because there were no

legal provisions allowing them to hold or care for the turtles.

 

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