Rare turtle, Thought extinct, Reintroduced

ScrAPES#15: Rare Turtle, Thought Extinct, Reintroduced

By Michael Casey

April 13, 2015

In Myanmar there used to be a rare turtle named Myanmar roofed turtle (or Batagur Trivittata) who was found supposedly extinct in 2001; when Platt and U Win Ko discovered a single shell from a recently killed turtle. Approximately ten years later, the Myanmar roofed turtle were found at a wildlife market in China and the ponds of a pagoda (a Hindu or Buddhist temple or sacred building, typically a many-tiered tower, in India and East Asia.) in Mandalay. The three turtles created a captive assurance colony which was a cause of a program called a captive breeding program by WCS and the Turtle Survival Alliance. The program collected wild eggs and when they hatched the turtles automatically started breeding. The population so far for these Myanmar roofed turtles is at 600. The Myanmar Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Foresty established a new faculty in 2011 to increase the program's resilience to dangerous events, and to bring back the animals to their origins. Soon enough the villagers released 60 turtles who met the requirements of being big enough for survival because the smaller turtles had a least likely chance to survive. The turtle population decreased over the years due to the persistent threat of habitat loss.





This is interesting to me because recently in class we were learning about invasive, native, and extinct species. IF the Myanmar roofed turtles were extinct for at least a decade then that makes me wonder if setting them back out to their environment will change any web that has occurred in its environment. For example if the Myanmar roofed turtles had a predator ten years ago, would the same predator find interest in them? Maybe the Myanmar roofed turtles either migrated to a new environment OR they were close to extinctions like the Rhinos. 




This is important to the environment because lately in this generation there are many animals and plants that are going extinct, endangered or near to become an endangered species, but of course not humans. That is kind of funny because it seems like humans are taking over everything. It is kind of sad too. Anyways, this comeback from the Myanmar roofed turtle is kind of a surprised because it may or may not effect the environment. I do not know whether or not the environment need all the animals that extinct or are threatened to extinction to be alive, or maybe it is for the good that they are gone. If there were severe changes towards the Myanmar and its lifestyle, hopefully it would adapt.




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Rare turtle, Thought extinct, Reintroduced into wild