Zoos with the rarest / most endangered freshwater turtles

Thanks for sharing this @vogelcommando !

I'll check it out, sounds very interesting indeed.

 

Now about the first video. He starts talking about tmhow they keep the turtels. With the fact that the summer was to hot even for these tropical species tastes. But how turtles are supresingly sensetive, and how their turtles all have hiding spaces. He talks about how turtles together with amphibians are the most threatend vertebrates. With habitat destruction, but in particular the wild animal trade extermenates them. How 10 000s of turtles are consfiscated at air ports. How they use dogs to find them in the forrest and how chinese greed for turtles as food, medecine and status symbol allready destoied the turtle population in most of asiaand how for example a single Chinese yellow-headed box turtle can make 80-100 000 Euro in the black market. They also talk the asian box turtles, which make to majority of animals kept here. And how even though they are turtles, many adult species live mostly on land. And their unique ability to close their shells on both ends. Like a hinge. Which is why they are called hinge turtles in german. With their lower shell being able to love. And how breeding endangered turtles works realy well, since they can reproduce for so long, that the gentic diversity stays very high. With the example of a nothern vi etnamese box turtle breeding with a age over 100

 

Thank you for this brilliant translation @GiratinaIsGod !

Very interesting information here about this species, its conservation status and the threats it faces in the wild.

Strange how even their turtles found the European summer far too hot. I wonder what this will mean for the in-situ conservation of many of these species as climate change begins to cause fluctuations in thermal temperatures in freshwater habitats.

That is incredible about that Northern Vietnamese box turtle species that remains productively viable over the age of 100!

I suppose that is something to keep in mind with freshwater turtles. Despite all of the many threats they are facing ensuring their genetic diversity and avoiding population bottlenecks and genetic inbreeding may not be as much as a problem as it is with other threatened and endangered vertebrate groups.

 

As mentioned in another thread, National Aquarium in Baltimore has a bunch!
List is from June 2019.
Australia:
Mary River turtle Elusor macrurus
Northern snake-necked turtle Chelodina rugosa
Broad-shelled snake-necked turtle Chelodina expansa
Pig-nosed turtle Carettochelys insculpta
Northern Australian snapping turtle Elseya dentata
Northwest red-faced turtle Emydura australis
Northern yellow-faced turtle Emydura tanybaraga
Jardine river turtle Emydura subglobosa
Northern red-faced turtle Emydura victoriae
Saw-shelled turtle Elseya latisternum
Eastern snake-naked turtle Chelodina longicollis
Krefft's turtle Emydura krefftii

Amazon:
Guyana side-necked turtle Phrynops tuberosus
Giant South American river turtle Podocnemis expansa
Red-headed Amazon side-neck turtle Podocnemis erythrocephala
Big-headed turtle Mesoclemmys gibbus
Yellow-spotted Amazon river turtle Podocnemis unifilis
Big-headed Amazon river turtle Peltocephalus dumerilianus

Rainforest:
Spot-bellied side-necked turtle Phrynops hilarii

 

Columbus's:
Spotted turtle Clemmys guttata
Mata Mata Chelus fimbriatus
McCord's snake-necked turtle Chelodina mccordi
Barbour's map turtle Graptemys barbouri
Spiny hill turtle Heosemys spinosa
Black-breasted leaf turtle Geoemyda spengleri
Yellow-spotted Amazon river turtle Podocnemis unifilis
Annam pond turtle Mauremys annamensis
Striped narrow-headed softshell turtle Chitra chitra
Yellow-headed temple turtle Heosemys annandalii
Fly River turtle Carettochelys insculpta
Siebenrock's snake-necked turtle Chelodina siebenrocki
Malaysian giant pond turtle Orlitia borneensis
Northern Australian snapping turtle Myuchelys latisternum
Alligator snapping turtle Macrochelys temminckii
Coahuilan box turtle Terrapene coahuila
Yellow-margined box turtle Cuora flavomarginata
Stripe-necked leaf turtle Cyclemys tcheponensis

 

Thank you for your brilliant comment @TinoPup ! Much appreciated!

These are some amazing lists of species kept and I'll have a look at a few of these turtles because I admit there are quite a few species here that I'm not familiar with.

It would appear that these two zoos are really taking the conservation crisis of freshwater turtles seriously and that can only be a good thing for these beautiful reptiles.

 

The Aquarium in particular seems rather dedicated to turtles; several of those species even have multiple exhibits.

Columbus has an entire section of their reptile building for just turtles. I didn't spend as much time as I wanted to looking at them - ropes kept people back from the glass and it was my last exhibit before my 8+ hour drive home - but the softshell turtle, in particular, was really neat looking.

 

An 8+ hour drive home ?!!

You are a hardcore zoochatter for sure.

I can totally see why aquariums and zoos would dedicate themselves to freshwater turtles as like amphibians many of them are relatively easy to keep and breed and similarly they are going through a hell of a bad time due to anthropogenic threats.

I love softshell turtles they are such curious looking things.

 

I'm not nearly as hardcore as some members here, but I do like my zoo trips On my way there I added a detour of several hours just to see honey badger, haha. And nearly didn't see her! But the long drive through the mountains after two days at Columbus was a bit rough.

I wish more places had softshells, I see them so rarely, and I've been to quite a few of the bigger herp zoos. They unfortunately take up a little more room than frogs, though

 

No, really that really takes some dedication, I find it admirable.

I bet the road trip was really scenic on the way there and back too so it is a journey about more than just ticking species off the list for sure.

I do too and I really think they (and freshwater turtles) are another threatened group that like inverts, amphibians and small mammals could be focused far more on by zoos in place of the "ABC's".

 

Some great outreach videos from the zoo on their turtle collection and ex-situ conservation with these too apparently.

 

Baltimore aquarium too seem to have some interesting outreach programs with freshwater turtles.

Check out this one which brought hatchling diamondback turtles into classrooms for children to care for and learn about for a few weeks :



This is really quite an innovative and interesting idea to encourage participation in conservation in the younger generations.

It must be logistically quite challenging but looks pretty amazing actually!

 

It was quite nice on my way there, even just being on highways. A bit past peak leaf viewing but still nice It was dark almost all of my drive back - I didn't leave Columbus until 4pm. It did seem like a nice drive, it took me off the highway and I passed fallingwater (Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous house), but I couldn't see anything.

I'm always a fan of seeing the species that are largely ignored! I had to wait a little over half an hour for the honey badger to make an appearance and very few people even stopped to look for it, much more mesmerized by the lar gibbons across from them. Those that did usually thought it was for skunks.

 

Yes, I'll bet it was scenic alright and these kind of road trips are pretty good for the soul too.

You know, the name sounded familiar but I couldn't think who Frank Lloyd Wright was but then I typed it into google and yes I'd seen images of his architecture before. The house must look at its best in autumn I guess as it looks spectacular on google images with the fall foilage.

Me too, the neglected in conservation and zoo terms are definitely my thing.

Isn't that always the way ? lol, its happened to me too more than once.

For example, a couple of times when in the UK heading to Central London to visit ZSL to specifically see the Malagasy giant jumping rats, pottos and other nocturnal animals I would hear variations of : "I can't see it!", "where is it ? is it dead? " "Yuck ! , look a big f***** rat !".

 

It was a nice break from my puppy for a few days
Yes, I would have loved to see the house! Shame it was dark.

It always is. I was crunched for time a bit, I was fitting in 2 zoos in 4 hours, but I didn't want to leave until I saw the badger and that meant sitting by the exhibit and listening to everyone walking by.

I LOVE the large rats, you should see me with the cloud rats at Smithsonian! I do have a hard time seeing the animals in a lot of dark set ups (I can't see them at all at bronx, for example) but I try. I was really happy when I finally saw the jumping rats, and the aye aye!, at Philly.

 

Never seen a cloud rat before I don't think but they are a very interesting group of rodents and so many of them are quite severely endangered so I can quite imagine how fascinating they were.

Where cloud rat species were these in particular ?

Glad to hear that you saw both the aye aye and the jumping rats , that is awesome!

I have to say (though it probably doesn't need to be said as I've mentioned it so much on this forum already lol ) that the Malagasy giant jumping rat is probably my favourite rodent species and certainly one of my favourite mammals too.

 

For some species I'd say it's less a question of where they are kept but rather a question where the heck they are actually breeding them. Take matamata (not yet considered endangered I know) and fly river turtle for example. Both are pretty common around the world, but in Europe there is only one breeding record of matamata in zoos and only 3 zoos that either are or have bred fly river turtles. In a US private care manual I also read that the writer knew of only one single breeder of matamata in the US private sector. And yet both species are on the regular kept in non-breeding setups and/or in mixed exhibits with aggressive fish, crocodilians and even snakes. Some other species where this happens on the regular are Chinese soft-shelled turtle and snapping turtles. Many holders, many single specimens and as far as I know no breeding at all in European zoos (except for the Central-American snapping turtle). For these species we do have the luck that there are farm-bred specimens available, but that's not the case for every species.

I'd say especially for the bigger species this is a big problem. In Pairi Daiza I've seen several rare and endangered turtles and tortoises (some rare in zoos, some rare in the wild, some rare in both) and the amount of single individuals, non-breeding groups, bad social groups and/or horrendous mixed exhibits is astonishing. This included species like matamata, brown tortoise, Ploughshare tortoise and Chinese soft-shelled turtle.

To end on a positive note. My local zoo keeps some rare species like Elseya branderhorsti (VU, handfull of zoos, first breeding in European zoos a.f.i.k.), Cuora amboinensis (EN, couple dozen zoos, bred from time to time) and Pelusios sp. (LC, two species kept in no other European zoo, first breeding two years back). They also keep an Nile soft-shelled turtle, but it's kept alone in a fish-tank sadly enough. Their Nubian flapshelled turtle was also kept alone with the Pelusios sp. so it never bred.

 

Brilliant comment @Jarne thanks for writing it.

There is quite a lot to unpack here so I'll reply in two comments.

I didn't know that about mata-matas or fly river turtles at all, it is quite odd to think that zoos would import these species from the wild regularly and I find it quite hard to fathom because they are hardly very popular or "crowd favourites".

I have seen both of these species housed with crocodilians and fish but I haven't seen them ever housed with snakes. Which snake species and where have you seen these species kept in mixed enclosures with ?

 

I don't think it is such a problem that more common freshwater turtles are kept singly in zoos because as far as I'm aware (and I'm not very knowledgeable about turtles so I may be wrong in this regard) they are not such social creatures.

However, I do think there is quite a big problem if these are vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered species that are being kept singly in zoos when they could be part of a coordinated ex-situ captive breeding program.

Your local zoo has some pretty interesting species and it is good to hear that they have bred Branderhost's snapping turtle and the Amboina box turtle as these are of conservation concern.

Again, this is quite sad, why would they keep a Nile soft-shell turtle alone and not try to breed it considering that it is a vulnerable species ? Could it be that it is hard to obtain another of this species in captivity ?

 

You are right that a lot of turtles are indeed rather solitary creatures not needing companionship. For surplus individuals there is no problem with keeping them alone. Even when an institution houses multiple animals it might be needed to house them alone as some species are very aggressive to conspecifics. The problem however is too many institutions housing individual animals instead of investing in breeding setups. In general turtles are too often used as decoration in fish-tanks or other exhibits, but these setups don't support good breeding results.

For the nile soft-shell turtle, I suspect it's hard to obtain them but the current tank they are in also doesn't have a true land area (there is a rock just below water level that he/she can rest on) so they can't lay eggs either way. It's the same problem with many fly-river turtle tanks, even if zoos kept compatible pairs they would need a land-area to lay their eggs which is too often not provided. Even for turtles now considered common like matamata, this might not remain the case. Currently matamata are exported as eggs from their home countries, but with the possible split into multiple species it's questionable wether this will remain so easy. If those new species do turn out to be endangered and this egg-trade stops, you will end up with an unsustainable population of endangered turtles.