Looking for Commercial Turtle Trappers
- Thread starter Andre
- Start date
Welcome.
That probably ain’t legal. Plenty of places to catch them yourself though. They eat just about any meat you throw in the water.
That probably ain’t legal. Plenty of places to catch them yourself though. They eat just about any meat you throw in the water.
We are a commercial buyer and only buy legal (fish or turtles). Investigated the law and the only snapper and soft shell allowed for commercial use.
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We are not trappers. We are a licensed commercial buyers looking for trappers to work with for the season. We can buy pretty much all they can supply.
Perfectly legal to buy and sell turtle shells. I know a guy who sells them on eBay. 30-100 bucks a pop. These are cleaned and finished shells though. Lots of work.
Learn something every day.
Hate seeing the commercialization of our wildlife in this manner though. It's a little unsettling given human history and our cultural propensity to over-indulge.
Hate seeing the commercialization of our wildlife in this manner though. It's a little unsettling given human history and our cultural propensity to over-indulge.
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Sadly for profit turtle trapping is legal in Ohio. Ohio is one of the few states remaining that has not banned commercial trapping and sale of snapping and softshell turtles. All of our neighboring states prohibit it and states like Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, and Missouri have all banned or severely restricted it within the past 5 years. This means commercial buyers like Andre who says he's from KY but is posting from New Jersay has an ever shrinking area from which he can exploit our wildlife for sale to Asia or high end restaurants.
Not only does this break our spam policy of only allowing contributing members to advertise, its a shitty practice that neds be regulatedated by the state of Ohio. While the state has not done anything as of yet to stop it, we at TOO do not have to participate in the exploitation of our wildlife for sale to China.
Not only does this break our spam policy of only allowing contributing members to advertise, its a shitty practice that neds be regulatedated by the state of Ohio. While the state has not done anything as of yet to stop it, we at TOO do not have to participate in the exploitation of our wildlife for sale to China.
Snapping turtles are my favorite turtle, by far. Amazingly they are one of few species whose physiology has remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years. But that being said
... Why is selling turtle parts any different from selling muskrat or mink pelts?
... Why is selling turtle parts any different from selling muskrat or mink pelts?
It isn’t. But I don’t like the ideas of trapping things at all for sale. You want to trade your neighbor for tomatoes, I’m all for it. Going out and making money on any wildlife doesn’t seem right to me. Those resources aren’t only yours, they are everyone’s in the state.
Want to trap to protect something else, enjoy! Want to trap for something to do, enjoy! Want to trap to make money, sorry, I don’t agree.
Want to trap to protect something else, enjoy! Want to trap for something to do, enjoy! Want to trap to make money, sorry, I don’t agree.
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Couple of differences. The lifespan of a softshell and snapping turtle is about 25 years in the wild. The snapping turtle doesn't reach sexual maturity until between 11 and 16 years of age. The long lifespan and length of time to reach sexual maturity makes farming them quite cost prohibitive. Unlike mink and muskrat that breed like, well, rats, and reach harvestable maturity very quickly.
The farming issue coupled with the demand in Asia pushes buyers such as Andre to seek wild sources. They do so with complete disregard for the sustainability of the resource that have very low survivability rates on their own.
Meh. I'm not typing all this. Lol. Here is a good explanation.
There's a minimum size limit, Joe. These legal turtles are, for the most part, already sexually mature.
Farming mink has nothing to do with any of this. Guys trapping mink and rats in the marsh aren't trapping farm raised animals. They're trapping a viable population of a resource at a sustainable rate... For now. Turtle trapping is no different. And there aren't many people going after them anyway. I live in the epicenter of snapping turtle country of Ohio, and I can count on a few fingers how many serious turtle trappers I know. There's no shortage of turtles.
Now, is it fair that someone can trap and sell a turtle but I can't go out and catch a walleye and sell the meat? No, it isn't. And I can't shoot a deer and sell that meat either. But why can we sell the pelts of furbearers? Most of those don't even get eaten. At least turtle meat is edible. It's just because that's what trapping is all about and that's been the tradition for hundreds of years. If we were running out of snapping turtles, I'm sure things would change. Trust me there are plenty of antis that would love to see that happen. You ever notice how many snapping turtle nests get raided by coons? Damn near every one of them! Yet somehow we still have a shit load of turtles. Evidently a few always seem to evade the coons. If the coons can't eradicate snapping turtles, chances are the small number of trappers targeting them won't either.
Farming mink has nothing to do with any of this. Guys trapping mink and rats in the marsh aren't trapping farm raised animals. They're trapping a viable population of a resource at a sustainable rate... For now. Turtle trapping is no different. And there aren't many people going after them anyway. I live in the epicenter of snapping turtle country of Ohio, and I can count on a few fingers how many serious turtle trappers I know. There's no shortage of turtles.
Now, is it fair that someone can trap and sell a turtle but I can't go out and catch a walleye and sell the meat? No, it isn't. And I can't shoot a deer and sell that meat either. But why can we sell the pelts of furbearers? Most of those don't even get eaten. At least turtle meat is edible. It's just because that's what trapping is all about and that's been the tradition for hundreds of years. If we were running out of snapping turtles, I'm sure things would change. Trust me there are plenty of antis that would love to see that happen. You ever notice how many snapping turtle nests get raided by coons? Damn near every one of them! Yet somehow we still have a shit load of turtles. Evidently a few always seem to evade the coons. If the coons can't eradicate snapping turtles, chances are the small number of trappers targeting them won't either.
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I'll refer you to the last sentence of the almost 20 year study conducted just north of us in Michigan that I posted earlier. "Carefully managed sport harvest of turtles or other long-lived organisms may be sustainable, however commercial harvest will certainly cause substantial population declines."
Here is another study conducted by the Missouri Department of fish and wildlife before they banned commercial harvest. It also addresses your statement of the size regulation supposedly protecting the immature turtles and why that actually does little to protect the sustainability of the species.
""In both species, elasticity analyses demonstrated that adults, which are the most vulnerable to commercial harvest, were the most important segment of the population demographically. These results corroborate the findings of other studies which indicate that even low annual harvest rates may have detrimental effects on the long-term sustainability of turtle populations at localized scales."
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2744/CCB-1109.1?journalCode=ccab&
The detrimental impact of allowing commercial harvest of wild turtles isn't debateable buddy. The scientific studies have been done by people far smarter than us and is right there in black and white. I'm not going to argue with them. States have begun to ban commercial sale left and right over the past few years for good reason None of our neighboring states allow for the commercial exploitation of wild turtles and both Texas and Arkansas have proposed laws this year to ban it there. Ohio banned live export of wild turtles in 2006 over concerns of commercial trapping sustainability but left a large loophole as it didn't ban the export of dead ones or meat.