The Madagascar Turtle Crisis

The Attempt to Restore Eden

By Dan Shapley

The radiated tortoise, seen here in Tsimanampetsotsa National Park, is one of Madagascar's five critically endangered tortoises. Four other turtles and tortoises are in decline. Like much of Madagascar's wildlife, radiated tortoises live nowhere else.

Biodiversity hotspots like Madagascar are increasingly the focus of conservation, as the world tries to halt an extinction crisis that scientists believe is the first in the geologic record to be caused by one species, humans.

Julie Larsen Maher
Wildlife Conservation Society

When Madagascar drifted away from Africa some 165 million years ago, wildlife on the island spun off on its own unique evolutionary path, producing the world's only lemurs, as well as dozens of amphibian, bird and reptile species found nowhere else on earth, including the radiated tortoise seen here at Cap St Marie, the southernmost part of Madagascar.
Julie Larsen Maher / Wildlife Conservation Society

Radiated tortoises like these live in the dry southern part of Madagascar, where they feed on plants. Like many other species of turtles and tortoises, they live long and grow big -- up to 16 inches across and 35 pounds. But they reproduce late in life, making them particularly susceptible to threats that kill mature breeders, or young before they reach breeding age.
Julie Larsen Maher / Wildlife Conservation Society

Conservationists are studying and seeking to protect species like the radiated tortoise, seen here being weighed by Rijasoa Fanazava in Madagascar. The illegal pet trade, along with hunting and habitat loss, are sending at least nine of Madagascar's native turtles and tortoises toward extinction.
Julie Larsen Maher / Wildlife Conservation Society

The Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups are working with communities in Madagascar to avoid unsustainable hunting and habitat loss that could doom several species of tortoises and turtles. They have proposed a "turtle brigade" to crack down on the illegal pet trade.
Julie Larsen Maher / Wildlife Conservation Society

Spider tortoises are one of the critically endangered turtles and tortoises of Madagascar. Like the ploughshare, flat-tailed and juvenile radiated tortoises, spider tortoises are coveted by collectors and traded as pets on the international black market.
Julie Larsen Maher / Wildlife Conservation Society

Local people in Madagascar hunt and eat turtles and tortoises, but many are also sold on international markets illegally. In China, a single radiated tortoise can fetch $50, due in part to purported aphrodisiac properties. When caught, radiated tortoises scream high-pitched cries that would scare off natural predators, but don't deter poachers.
Julie Larsen Maher
Wildlife Conservation Society

Conservationists say there is still hope for the endangered turtles and tortoises of Madagascar, but not without swift action to crack down on illegal pet and food trade, stop habitat loss, and bolster wild populations with those born in zoos.
Julie Larsen Maher / Wildlife Conservation Society