Do breeding facilities for chelonians threaten their stability in the wild?

Bedrohen Schildkrötenfarmen die Wildbestände?

Abstract

After a short introduction into the aims of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and the definition of the different breeding categories used by CITES („captive bred“, „captive born“ or „farmed“, and „captive raised“ or „ranched“), we present and evaluate import and export statistics of different species and countries. These show many cases of incorrect and inconsequent data, in some cases chelonians are mislabelled, or they entry into a country as „wild caught“ and leave it as „captive bred.“ Typical trading routes are named. We address the limits of CITES and show possibilities of the importing countries to improve the conservation status, i.e. by double-checking non-detriment findings, like it's imperative by each import into the European Union.