Service, Jeff Corwin team up to shed light on the toll trafficking takes on wild turtles

Conservationist Jeff Corwin teamed up with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and partners from the Massachusetts Army National Guard and Massachusetts Environmental Police to raise awareness about challenges facing North America’s native turtles and tortoises, including wildlife trafficking. Join Jeff in the field to track eastern box turtles and learn how you can help keep them wild. 

Turtles are ancient reptiles that face modern threats. On top of habitat loss, climate change climate change
Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale.

Learn more about climate change
, and car strikes when crossing roads, they are under pressure from illegal collection.   

But turtles can live long lives if we let them. If you believe someone is collecting or selling wild turtles illegally, call your state agency or submit a wildlife crime tip to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at 1-844-FWS-TIPS (397-8477) or https://www.fws.gov/wildlife-crime-tips

Here are ways you can help protect native turtles: https://www.fws.gov/story/how-you-can-help-turtles

An audio-described version of this video is available at: https://youtu.be/JOnfu3strwU

Story Tags

Connecting people with nature
Conservation science
Law enforcement
Partnerships
Reptiles