Dear HerpDigest,
Truth is the first casualty...
I was astonished to read the wildly inaccurate
article condemning the Turtle Relinquishment Program established between Petco
and the Concordia Turtle Farm. The source of this misinformation appears to be
the PETA website (http://www.peta.org/action/action-alerts/PETCO-Program-Sends-Pet-Turtles-to-Meat-Farm.aspx).
The purpose of the Relinquishment Program is to give
people that have purchased hatchlings from the black market an avenue to dispose
of their turtles without releasing them into the wild. They can do this by just
bringing them to the nearest Petco store.
The Concordia Turtle Farm receives the turtles from
Petco and then places those turtles in their ponds and either grows them up to
the required four inch size before selling them as pets or allows them to grow
to maturity to be used as breeding stock.
All of the numbers in the PETA article are wrong.
As an example, there’s nothing like 200,000 adult turtles at Concordia Turtle
Farm. Since Concordia feeds their adult turtles a diet of fresh whole fish and
specially designed pellets the food bill for 200,000 adult turtles would
probably bankrupt them in a season!
Concordia does not export anything like two million
hatchlings a year either. The turtle farms in the United States have undergone
a significant contraction as the Chinese have begun to dominate the industry
(see the LEMIS database). Today there are far fewer farms than there were in
the boom years of the early 1990s and total exports are vastly
reduced.
Concordia does not export anything but hatchling
turtles. These hatchlings have been produced from treated eggs and are
certified salmonella free by the state of Louisiana. Concordia does not export
turtle meat or adult turtles to be slaughtered. They are not a “meat
farm.”
I cannot find anywhere that Petco states they are in
"a partnership with the CDC." Sounds like yet more misinformation from PETA.
The CDC does not partner with private groups but they are obviously supportive
of the Relinquishment Program because they have said that “Some pet retailers
and pet stores may accept unwanted turtles.” in their Bulletin (http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/small-turtles-03-12/advice-consumers.html).
The CDC is clearly aware that the Relinquishment Program is an excellent avenue
to get unwanted black market turtles away from young children.
It’s ludicrous to declare that the Relinquishment
Program is “obviously a profitable venture.” Farms like Concordia are highly
efficient and can produce a salmonella free hatchling for less than the cost of
the box needed to ship the unwanted turtles from Petco. Anyone that knows
anything about labor and shipping costs could see that there’s lots of money to
be lost doing this but the Relinquishment Program is still the right thing to
do.
PETA states that “Petco should not be selling them
(turtles) to begin with.” I wonder what special knowledge they have to make
this judgement call. Who are they to say what should be a desired pet? I know
that I got a great deal of joy out of the pet turtles that I had as a boy and
would want children today to have the same opportunity if those turtles came
from a legitimate turtle farm and not from the wild.
In their pursuit of sensationalism PETA has been
negligent in supervising the quality of the information on their web site. I
would suggest they turn their attentions inward and clean up their own act
before they attack an American business that is productive and efficient because
it is a well run farm that cares for its livestock.
Yours,
Mark Feldman
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