Collaborative to Combat the Illegal Trade in Turtles (CCITT)
Image of box turtle by Ms. Mallory
CCITT formed in 2018 with the mission of advancing efforts to better understand, prevent, and eliminate the illegal collection and trade of North America’s native turtles. CCITT is comprised mostly of state, federal, and tribal agency personnel, with additional specialists from academia and non-governmental organizations. CCITT membership includes many state and federal natural resource law enforcement officers. It is a priority of the group to build bridges between the law enforcement and biological communities.
In 2020, CCITT joined forces with PARC’s Turtle Network Team to work as efficiently as possible towards these shared goals.
Image of North America’s smallest turtle, the bog turtle (Glyptemys muhlenbergii) taken by Ms. Mallory while on assignment. The bog turtle is, sadly, a targeted species in the turtle trafficking trade.
Wildlife trafficking is a global problem that impacts many species, but an unfortunate confluence of factors make the illegal collection and trade of turtles a particularly troublesome issue.
Once thought to only be a ‘overseas’ issue, turtle trafficking is becoming a ‘backyard’ issue in the US. More and more of our native turtles are being illegally collected at an alarming rate.
High demand from both overseas and domestic markets, coupled with life history characteristics that make populations susceptible to immediate and irreversible declines, put populations of turtles at extremely high risk. The illegal collection of turtles undercuts investments by natural resource agencies to conserve vulnerable species, and to keep common species common.
State and federal law enforcement officials and conservation biologists consider the illegal collection of turtles to be a conservation crisis occurring at an international scale. Many confiscations now involve hundreds or thousands of individual wild-caught turtles.