Washington, DC, May 15, 2003--The Turtle Conservation Fund (TCF) today released its first-ever list of the World's Top 25 Most Endangered Turtles to highlight the survival crisis facing the world's tortoises and freshwater turtles and to unveil a Global Action Plan to prevent further extinctions. Fully 200 of the 300 living species of tortoises and freshwater turtles are threatened and require conservation action.

The TCF list focuses on 25 species at highest risk and includes endangered and critically endangered tortoises and freshwater turtles, based on the World Conservation Union's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, as well as general consensus between TCF's three partner organizations--the Center For Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International (CABS), The World Conservation Union Species Survival Commission's (IUCN/SSC) Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group (TFTSG), and IUCN/SSC Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA).

"Many of the critically endangered species are at great risk of going extinct within the next 20 years--unless we take immediate action," said Kurt Buhlmann, Conservation International's director for the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science Turtle Program, and executive director for the Turtle Conservation Fund. "The Turtle Conservation Fund is a strategic partnership that combines the strengths of our organizations and will enable us to act quickly to avoid further extinctions and ensure sustainable populations of wild species."

In Indonesia, for example, the Sulawesi forest turtle is already critically endangered after only being known to science for less than 10 years. The belief that soup and jelly made from the attractive Chinese three-striped box turtle has cancer-curing properties has reduced populations of this species to a few remnant colonies in Northern Vietnam and China.

"With nine of the world's turtle species and subspecies having already become extinct at the hands of moder
'"/>

Contact: Pamela Moyer
p.moyer@conservation.org
202-912-1294
Conservation International
15-May-2003

Page: 1 2 3 4
Related biology news :

1. Endangered turtles trek along ocean currents revealed by satellite
2. Researchers find evidence that sea turtles navigate with magnetic maps
3. Loggerhead sea turtles nesting earlier due to warmer ocean temperatures
4. Worlds largest-ever sea turtle symposium to address plummeting populations of sea turtles
5. Endangered sea turtles make a dramatic turnaround
6. Scientists celebrate a sea turtles homecoming
7. Leatherback sea turtles careening towards extinction
8. Biologists raising baby loggerhead turtles for conservation find disturbing gender trend
9. Too many turtles may end up as roadkill
10. University of Georgia geneticist among the first to study genetic mating systems of fishes and turtles
11. Study finds rare juvenile turtles