TORRANCE – Authorities are asking the public not to buy black market red-eared sliders, a popular species of turtle, because they are being abandoned by the thousands across the Southland.
“In the last couple of weeks I’ve found three dead ones,” said Tracy Drake, manager of Torrance’s Madrona Marsh Preserve. “We have people that go up to the gate at night and push them through.”
When a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s task force followed a tip about illegal fireworks in San Pedro on the Fourth of July, deputies unexpectedly found a stash of 10,000 live baby turtles.
“They were about 500 turtles in each box–and they literally exploded out of the boxes,” said Linda Crawford, the adoption chairwoman of the California Turtle and Tortoise Club’s Foothill chapter.
Turtles carry salmonella on their shells, and excrement. Federal law has prohibited the sale of any turtle under 4 inches since 1975, but authorities say that hasn’t slowed black market sales of the ever-popular turtle.
Typically bought when miniature size, the animals are routinely abandoned when they start to reach even half of their full-size capacity of 12 to 13 inches.
Sharon Paquette, president of the Orange County chapter of the California Turtle and Tortoise Club, urged people to resist the temptation to buy turtles at flea markets or in Chinatown because it only encourages the sellers to acquire more of them.
