Russian Journal of Herpetology Vol. 00, No. ??, 20??, pp. 1 – 12 DOI: 10.30906/1026-2296-20??-00-??-1-12 FARMING CHARACTERISTICS AND THE ECOLOGY OF Palea steindachneri (TRIONYCHIDAE) IN VIETNAM Olivier Le Duc,1 Thong Van Pham,1 Benjamin Leprince,1 Cedric Bordes,1 Vinh Luu Quang,2 Oanh Lo Van,2 Anh Nguyen Thi Tam,2 Linh Luong Thi Khanh,2 Son Pham Ngoc,2 and Luca Luiselli3–5* Submitted August 9, 2019. Breeding turtles in farms for offering them in the food market is a profitable market in Vietnam. Here we study, through structured questionnaires with 73 owners of turtle farms, the social and economic contexts of this business activity. We also collected ecological data for the most intensely bred species, the Wattle-necked softshell turtle, Palea steindachneri. Palea farms were typically small family-owned companies, with just 1 to 4 employees work- ing just 1–2hperdaybutalmost every day in the week, and with 1 to 4 ponds available in the facilities. Sex ratio of farmed turtles was heavily skewed to females in both P. steindachneri and Amyda cartilaginea (the secondly most frequently bred species), and their clutch size was very similar. Inside farms, mating of P. steindachneri oc- curred in February, egg deposition in March – July with a peak in May, and egg hatching in May – October, with a peak in July. In Vietnam, the typical owner of P. steindachneri farms is a self-made man who had enjoyed very lit- tle management and support from government for his/her business. Keywords: turtle farms; softshell turtles; ecology; social sciences; Vietnam. INTRODUCTION for commercial purpose in Vietnam, including deer (Cervus ssp.), wild pigs (Sus scrofa), porcupines (Hystrix In Vietnam, wildlife farming started in 1986 when brachyura), birds (e.g., Coturnix coturnix, Anas poecilo- the country opened the gate to the free trade after some rhyncha), and reptiles such as crocodiles (Crocodylus decades of pure socialist economy (Quang and Kam- siamensis, Crocodylus porosus), snakes (e.g., Ptyas spp., meier, 2002). Today, several wildlife species are farmed Naja spp., Python bivittatus, Python reticulatus) and tur- tles (e.g., Pelodiscus sinensis, Palea steindachneri, He- 1 Turtle Sanctuary and Conservation Center, 19 rue Béranger 75003 Paris, France; e-mails: [email protected], oesemys grandis, etc.). According to FAO (2014), during [email protected], [email protected], 2013 in twelve provinces in Southern Vietnam, there [email protected] were 996, 731 individuals of 175 wildlife species, with 2 Vietnam National University of Forestry, str. 21, Xuan Mai town, the highest numbers of farmed animals being crocodiles Chuong My district, 100000 Hanoi, Vietnam; and softshell turtles, that accounted for 618,540 individu- e-mails: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], als. This number of turtles was anyway just a tiny frac- [email protected] tion if compared to the approximately 300 million turtles 3 Institute for Development, Ecology, Conservation and Cooperation, housed in Chinese farms (Haitao et al., 2008). To date, via G. Tomasi di Lampedusa 33, I-00144 Rome, Italy; the economic value from farming wildlife in Vietnam is e-mail: [email protected] not documented but the commercial value of turtle farm- 4 Department of Applied and Environmental Biology, Rivers State ing in China was estimated to be around 750 million US University of Science and Technology, P.M.B. 5080, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. dollars per year (Haitao et al., 2008). Due to scarce and 5 Département de Zoologie et Biologie Animale, Faculté des Sciences, poorly skilled human resources and widespread corrup- Université de Lomé, B.P. 1515, Lomé, Togo. tion, wildlife farming is still complicated in Vietnam. * Corresponding author. These farms have become means used to “wash” illegally 1026-2296/20??/000??-0001 © 20?? Folium Publishing Company 2 Olivier Le Duc et al. caught in “legal” wild animals born in captivity before this species is particularly valuable for farming because they are spread to local and international markets (FAO, of its high value (currently 15 US dollar/kg in market 2014; Sigouin et al., 2017). Indeed, despite Vietnam has price), large size (up to 45 kg weight and up to 450 mm severe environmental laws, their regulation and imple- carapace length; Marchetti and Engstrom, 2016) and mentation remain weak, thus making the country one of good productivity in captivity (e.g., Asian Turtle Trade the world hotspots of illegal wildlife trade (Brunner, Working Group, 2000; Shi et al., 2004; Haitao et al., 2012; Van Song, 2008). 2008; Radford, 2011;). During the early 1990s, P. stein- Vietnam is among the top ten countries of the world dachneri was initially successfully farmed in Yen Bai and in terms of turtle fauna richness, with a total of 32 species Son La provinces, before spreading to many provinces in (27 terrestrial and freshwater turtles and 5 marine turtle) Northern and Central Vietnam (Hai Ha, 2017). In this pa- being recorded so far inside the country (Turtle Taxon- per, we analyze the social, economic, and ecological as- omy Working Group et al., 2017). This number of species pects related to the farming of P. steindachneri in north- is however instable because of the debated taxonomic ern Vietnam by a standardized and structured question- status of several taxa: for instance, Cuora galbinifrons naire distributed to farm owners. and Cuora bourreti were recently reassessed as conspeci- fics (Liu et al., 2019), whereas a new species of Pelodis- cus was described (Farkas et al., 2019). Because of their MATERIAL AND METHODS high economic value (Haitao et al., 2008; Van et al., 2019), turtles are also target of massive farming in Viet- The field survey was carried out, in June 2019, nam (Pham et al., 2018; Sigouin et al., 2017; Van et al., in three communes of Northern Vietnam: Cat Thinh, 2019), with Trionychidae species being the most abun- Nghia Tam, and Tran Phu of Van Chan district, Yen Bai dantly farmed turtles in the country (FAO, 2014). Three (21°27¢43.27¢¢ N 104°46¢18.29¢¢ E) (Fig. 1). These study softshell turtle species (Trionychidae) commonly occur areas are known as being the first provinces for P. stein- in Vietnamese farms: the Wattle-necked softshell turtle dachneri farming activities in Vietnam since the 1990s (Palea steindachneri) in the North and Central regions, (Hai Ha, 2017). Within the three above-mentioned com- the Asiatic softshell turtle (Amyda cartilaginea)inthe munes, Van Chan district is particularly relevant for turtle Southern regions, and the Chinese softshell turtle (Pelo- farming as it currently houses about 200 – 300 P. stein- discus sinensis) all throughout the country (Pham V. T., dachneri farms, with their size differing greatly from site personal observations). to site (Yen Bai Fisheries department, 2019). Palea steindachneri has a wide range in Vietnam, Farms were selected randomly from those that were China and Laos (Asian Turtle Trade Working Group, potentially available for our interviews. We performed 2000), and has been introduced to Mauritius (Asian Tur- structured interviews with farm owners. The interviews tle Trade Working Group, 2000) and the Hawaii islands were conducted by four students of the Vietnam National (Markus, 2011; Pham et al., 2018; Radford, 2011). The University of Forestry, Hanoi, under the supervision in ecology of P. steindachneri is totally unknown: Radford the field of four of the co-authors (Olivier Le Duc, Thong (2011) presents the only field data available on this spe- Pham Van, Luu Quang Vinh, and Lo Van Oanh). No mi- cies, but his study concerned the introduced Hawaiian nors were interviewed, and the interview protocol fol- populations. In Hawaii, nesting probably takes place in lowed the ethical recommendations of the British Socio- June and the eggs hatch in late August or September. logical Association. After collecting the basic informa- Each clutch consists of 3 – 28 spherical eggs (22 mm in tion on personal details of the respondents such as name, diameter), and the hatchlings are 54 – 58 mm in carapace age, interview location, GPS point, marriage status, and length (Radford, 2011). In China, this species can inhabit education level, the students started with the structured mountain streams up to 1500 m a.s.l. (Pope, 1935). Cur- questionnaire, that consisted of the following twenty- rently, P. steindachneri is a species of conservation con- eight questions: cern as it has been listed as Endangered by IUCN (2018) 1. How many people work on your farm? according to the criteria (A1cd+2cd) (Asian Turtle Trade 2 How many hours per day do they work? Working Group, 2000). The status of the Vietnamese 3. How many days per week do they work? populations is unknown, as neither field studies nor con- 4. How many ponds do you have in your farm? servation assessments are available. Anyway, P. steinda- 5. What is the size of each ponds? chneri is protected by law in Vietnam (category IIB in na- 6. Which species do you breed? (a) P. steindachneri, tional decree 06/2019/NP-CP): capture of free-ranging (b) Amyda cartilaginea (c), Pelodiscus sinensis? Others? individuals is prohibited and trade is regulated so that un- 7. How many individuals do you have for breeding authorized farming is sanctioned with jail. In Vietnam, for each species? Palea steindachneri Farms in Vietnam 3 Fig. 1. Map of northern Vietnam showing the sites of the surveyed farms (= interview locations). 8. What is their sex ratio? 20. Are you aware of what kind of use the buyers of 9. What is the average clutch size of the females? your tortoises have made? 10. In which month did you observe mating of 21. How much is the current yearly average net in- turtles? come from turtle farming? 11.