This Critically Endangered turtle is named for the Arakan Mountains of western Myanmar, and is also native to Bangladesh. Camouflaged by its dark brown skin and dark brown to tan carapace, this turtle seamlessly blends into the leafy forest floor it traverses. This turtle has been observed burrowing under leaves during the hottest parts of the day, and is largely active at night.

These turtles look similar to other species native to the same area, like young Asian Giant Tortoises, but have certain traits that set them apart, such as long, sharp claws that allow them to climb through rugged terrain.

Due to habitat destruction, collection for the pet trade, and lack of access to priority areas, this species was presumed extinct for decades, but in 1994, it was rediscovered in an Asian food market. Establishing assurance colonies and protected breeding facilities have increased its populations. 

Turtle Survival Alliance dedicated Myanmar’s first turtle and tortoise rescue facility in 2012. The Turtle Rescue Center (TRC) is located in May Myo along a major trade route from Mandalay to China for illegally harvested wildlife.

At the TRC, Arakan Forest Turtles confiscated from illegal trade have a place to stabilize and be treated for dehydration and any injuries they may have sustained during capture and transit, They’re then integrated into our collaborative assurance colonies for conservation breeding.

We also support the Turtle Conservation Center in Bhawal National Park, Bangladesh, where multiple Critically Endangered species of turtle and tortoise are bred to increase their numbers in the country and for introducing into the wild to bolster wild populations. This project is a collaborative effort of Creative Conservation Alliance, Turtle Survival Alliance, and Bangladesh Forest Department.

A new enclosure to house Arakan Forest Turtles, an endemic to western Myanmar, was completed in April 2011 at the Rakhine Yoma Elephant Range in Gwa. In 2023, we hatched eight Arakan forest turtles between two assurance colonies here.

The species is also a part of our breeding program at the Turtle Survival Center.

• Pictured: Arakan Forest Turtle (Heosemys depressa)
• Countries of Origin: Bangladesh, Myanmar
• Habitat: Mountainous evergreen and bamboo forests
• Wild Population: Decreasing; habitat loss accounts for more than 80% of decline; individuals increasingly difficult to find
• IUCN Red List Status: Critically Endangered
• Threats: Habitat destruction; collection for local consumption and foreign pet and meat trades

Header image courtesy of Alina Loth.

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Unfortunately, its fascinating qualities make this tortoise desirable for poaching for the pet trade, resulting in the drastic decrease in its population. It now only exists in scattered populations in its native countries of Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia, where it relies on unique rock outcroppings for its habitat.

To protect this species, Turtle Survival Alliance partners with conservation entities in Kenya — the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, the National Museums of Kenya, and the Kenyan Wildlife Service, to explore previously unsurveyed but promising areas of Kenya for undocumented populations of Pancake Tortoises.

In the fall of 2023, we expanded our surveys to now include seven community conservancies, and are now embarking on developing a long-term survival plan focused on community protection measures that will include population monitoring, augmentation, and learning more about the ecology of this species.

Turtle Survival Alliance also manages captive populations of Pancake Tortoises in the care of partnering facilities and individuals, including our supporter and partner Garden State Tortoise.

Thank you to our partners on this project:
Lewa Wildlife Conservancy Canada, Il N’gwesi Community Conservancy, National Museums of Kenya, Kenyan Wildlife Service, Leparua Community Conservancy, Nasuulu Community Conservancy, West Gate Community Conservancy, Kalama Community Conservancy, Lekurki Community Conservancy.

• Pictured: Pancake Tortoise (Malacochersus tornieri)
• Countries of Origin: Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia
• Habitat: Isolated rocky hill and outcropping microhabitats in semi-arid and arid thornbush savannas
• Wild Population: Decreasing; estimated population reduction greater than 80%; populations severely fragmented; majority of populations occur outside protected areas
• IUCN Red List Status: Critically Endangered
• Threats: Illegal collection for the pet trade; habitat destruction and conversion for farming; laundering wild-caught tortoises as captive bred

Header image by Clinton Doak.

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The Spotted Box Turtle (Terrapene nelsoni) has a brown carapace spattered with creamy yellow spots, and like all box turtles, it has the ability to close up its shell entirely, thanks to the hinge on its plastron. Males commonly develop large bulbous heads and pronounced beaks, which they use for fighting over burrows, females, and territory.

To support this area of the world in dire need of conservation interventions, we work with Mexican nonprofits, such as Estudiantes Conservando la Naturaleza, or Students Conserving Nature (SCN), universities, and individuals to evaluate and monitor populations, perform ecological field studies, and initiate conservation actions for imperiled and understudied species, like the Spotted Box Turtle.

The data to support the current conservation status of the Spotted Box Turtle lends itself to the species’ status as Data Deficient, but thanks to recent involvement and discussion at the IUCN Red List workshop held in Mexico City in July 2023, numerous species will likely see their endangerment status uplisted to a greater threat level in 2024.

**The Spotted Box Turtle, like most species of turtle and tortoise in Mexico, is protected from commercial collection and trade.**

• Pictured: Spotted Box Turtle (Terrapene nelsoni)
• Countries of Origin: Mexico
• Habitat: Oak savannas, tropical dry forests, and montane pine-oak forests
• Wild Population: Unknown – one of North America’s most understudied chelonians
• IUCN Red List Status: Data Deficient
• Threats: Habitat destruction; illegal collection for the pet trade; prolonged drought

All photos courtesy of Taggert Butterfield.

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This little tortoise is native to the southern extremes of Madagascar. With its black and straw-yellow carapace, it bears similarities to a fellow Malagasy species—one that it often shares habitat with—the Radiated Tortoise. This compact chelonian is distinguished from its much larger counterpart by its petite size and its shell pattern named for the web-like striations.

There are three subspecies of Spider Tortoise: Northern, Southern, and Common. The Common and Southern subspecies can be distinguished by the range in mobility of the hinge on the front lobe of the plastron, which acts as a defense mechanism, while the Northern subspecies lacks a hinge altogether.

These little tortoises, depending on sex, grow an average of 4.5 – 5 inches, with the Northern variation being the smallest overall.

The Spider Tortoise faces similar threats to the Radiated Tortoise, including poaching for domestic bushmeat food markets, the international pet trade, and habitat loss. Interestingly, this tortoise is often caught by poachers as “bycatch” when they are searching for Radiated Tortoises.

We work to protect this species through our confiscation, treatment and rehabilitation, captive breeding, and reintroduction work in Madagascar.

• Pictured: Spider Tortoise (Pyxis arachnoides)
• Countries of Origin: Madagascar
• Habitat: Dense coastal dry forests, xeric spiny forests, and sandy coastal scrub
• Wild Population: Declining
• IUCN Red List Status: Critically Endangered
• Threats: Poaching for domestic bushmeat food markets and the international pet trade; habitat loss

Header image courtesy of Lance Paden.

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The Turtle Survival Alliance-North American Freshwater Turtle Research Group (TSA-NAFTRG) works with this charming yet Critically Endangered turtle species in northern New Jersey, where we commenced a radio telemetry study in the spring of 2023 to gather year-round data on turtle locations, ecology, and critical life histories such as behavior, unique home ranges, nesting sites, and overwintering hibernacula. 

Additionally, Turtle Survival Alliance supports Bog Turtle research and conservation efforts through the Turtle Survival Alliance/Zoo Knoxville Bern Tryon Southern Bog Turtle Fund, like the work of Mike Knoerr and JJ Apodaca at multiple wetlands in North Carolina. Furthermore, the Bog Turtle is one of the five focal species of the Turtle Survival Alliance-hosted Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Saving Animals From Extinction (AZA SAFE): American Turtle Program.

Our Bog Turtle research effort in New Jersey is supported and permitted by New Jersey Fish & Wildlife and funded by TC Energy. Special thanks to Laura Ware-MacNeil and Brian Zarate.

The work we support in North Carolina through the Bern Tryon Southern Bog Turtle Fund is a collaboration between Tangled Bank Conservation, Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, United States Fish & Wildlife Service, and The Nature Conservancy.

• Pictured: Bog Turtle (Glyptemys muhlenbergii)
• Countries of Origin: United States
• Habitat: Stream-, spring-, and seep-fed fens, sedge meadows, sphagnum bogs, marshes, and open shrubby swamps
• Wild Population: Decreasing; populations highly fragmented estimated population reduction greater than 90%
• IUCN Red List Status: Critically Endangered
• Threats: Habitat destruction, alteration, and fragmentation; illegal collection for the pet trade, increased mesopredator population levels

Header image: A hatchling Bog Turtle found in shallow water in North Carolina wetlands. Photo by Mike Knoerr.

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This law prohibits the commercial harvest of two species: Western Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta bellii) and Common Snapping Turtles (Chelydra serpentina). While these two species face threats including increased nest predation, habitat destruction and fragmentation, and pollution, the overharvesting of adults for the food and pet trades pose among their greatest threats for long-term population survival. Legal protection and action like this law aim to slow the decline of these populations.

Turtle Survival Alliance bolsters support for legislation that supports the protection of wild turtles in the face of overharvesting, hunting, and pet collection. In March 2021, we joined in supporting the advocacy movement to protect Minnesota’s turtles from overharvesting. Now enacted into law, these protections are a step forward in our mission to create a world where wild populations of turtles thrive in the wild.

Conservation wins like this are essential, but the work is far from over. Advocacy for turtle conservation is an ongoing endeavor. 

To support our work to protect wild turtles, contribute today at the link in our bio.

Photo courtesy of Derek Montgomery for MPR News.

Pictured: Western Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta bellii)

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For our #TurtleOfTheWeek, meet the beautiful Bourret’s Box Turtle!

The Bourret’s Box Turtle (Cuora bourreti) is one of the colorful members of the Cuora genus. This turtle looks remarkably similar to the Indochinese Box Turtle (Cuora galbinifrons), and in fact, until 2004, it was regarded as one of its subspecies. Both featuring gorgeous shell patterns and shades of yellows, reds, and oranges on the heads, necks, and limbs, the simplest way to spot the difference between the two species is the color of the plastron. Indochinese Box Turtles typically feature a predominately black belly, while the Bourret’s Box Turtle has a cream-colored belly with black blotches. 

This turtle’s pattern and coloration vary widely between individual turtles, featuring browns, yellows, and oranges, and it is mottled with black streaks, speckles, and blotches, allowing the species to blend in amongst fallen leaf litter on the forest floor.

This turtle was once considered common in their terrestrial forest habitats in Vietnam and Laos, but intensive hunting in the 1990s and early 2000s has led to a drastic reduction of over 90% in the wild population. Other threats such as  habitat destruction, attributed to activities such as timber operations, forest conversion for agriculture, livestock pastureland, and mining, pose a widespread and persistent threat to Bourret’s Box Turtles. Despite being legally protected in Laos and Vietnam, the turtles continue to be illegally hunted for trade, even within protected areas. Today, finding specimens of Bourret’s Box Turtle has become exceptionally challenging for both scientists and local hunters.

We aim to preserve the existence of this species through captive conservation breeding at our Turtle Survival Center. Producing genetically diverse, healthing hatchlings ensures that this species will not go extinct and provides the foundation for which turtles may someday be returned to their wild habitat. Since the inception of the TSC, we have produced 60 hatchling Bourret’s Box Turtles.

• Pictured: Bourret’s Box Turtle (Cuora bourreti)
• Countries of Origin: Laos, Vietnam
• Habitat: Upland, moist, closed-canopy evergreen forests
• Wild Population: Decreasing; estimated population reduction greater than 90%; individuals increasingly difficult to find
• IUCN Red List Status: Critically Endangered
• Threats: Collection for the pet and food trades; habitat destruction

Header image by Jordan Gray.

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These unique little turtles are named for the three ridges, or keels, running down their backs. Think of them as having shells like little overturned boat hulls navigating leafy forest floors in Southeast Asia.

These overexploited, endangered turtles are collected for the food and pet trades, and occasionally for traditional medicine. Habitat destruction, particularly the logging of old-growth forests, also greatly threatens their future. Turtle Survival Alliance works to preserve the existence of this species through captive breeding at our Turtle Survival Center and supporting captive breeding efforts at the Turtle Conservation Center in Bangladesh. Since 2013, we have bred 40 Keeled Box Turtles at the Turtle Survival Center, increasing the dwindling number of this species.

Our partner in Bangladesh, the Creative Conservation Alliance (CCA) works in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a rugged and remote region of southeastern Bangladesh to preserve turtle species in danger. The CCA works with local communities to perform population surveys and monitoring, promote education, awareness, and alternative livelihoods, and restore wild turtle and tortoise populations through reintroductions into Indigenous Community Conservation Areas. In 2017, the CCA, in collaboration with Turtle Survival Alliance and the Bangladesh Forest Department, established the Turtle Conservation Center in Bhawal National Park, aimed at establishing breeding populations for four priority species of turtle and tortoise that inhabit the Chittagong Hill Tracts, including the Keeled Box Turtle.

• Pictured: Keeled Box Turtle (Cuora mouhotii)
• Countries of Origin: Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam
• Habitat: Tropical and subtropical moist evergreen forests and lowland swamps
• Wild Population: Decreasing; estimated population reduction between 50-80%; uncommon to moderately common depending on location
• IUCN Red List Status: Endangered
• Threats: Habitat destruction; collection for the food, pet, and, occasionally, medicinal trades

Header image: A Keeled Box Turtle at the Turtle Survival Center. Photo by Rachel Harff.

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The Wood Turtle can be found in the Northeast and Great Lakes regions of the United States and parts of southeastern Canada. There, this turtle stands out from the pack with bright orange, pink, red, or yellow skin and well-defined shell scutes, as though they were carved from wood. It inhabits water-rich areas like riparian woodlands, moist meadows, vegetated floodplains, and cool, clear-to-relatively clear streams, creeks, and rivers.

For much of the year they are obligated to an aquatic lifestyle where they breed and brumate (reptilian hibernation). During the other, they move between terrestrial habitats, sometimes many kilometers per year. During summer heat spells or drought, this turtle often returns to the water and its immediate surroundings.

Once an abundant turtle, habitat fragmentation, alteration, and destruction, road and railroad mortality, increased predator populations, collection for the pet trade, and climate change, among other threats, have severely depleted, if not altogether extirpated, populations. Due to this, the North American Wood Turtle is regarded by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List as Endangered, and is now protected in every United States state and Canadian province in which they naturally occur, ranging in conservation status from a Species of Special Concern to Endangered.

The Wood Turtle is a key species in the AZA SAFE: American Turtle Program, which addresses the threat of illegal trade by assisting federal and state wildlife agency law enforcement officers in protecting native turtles and in developing procedures to return confiscated turtles to the wild.

Learn more about how you can help this species and others at the link in our bio!

Pictured: North American Wood Turtle (Glyptemys insculpta)
IUCN Red List Status: Endangered

?: Jordan Gray

Header image by Miranda McCleaf.

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Due to habitat conversion, largely for cropland, livestock pastureland, logging operations, and tourism, and increasingly, poaching for the international pet trade, the many turtles and tortoises of Mexico are under threat. The Pacific Coast Musk Turtle population is decreasing, and recent assessment by the IUCN Red List will likely see their endangerment status uplisted to a greater threat level in 2024.

To combat this turtle’s decline, we support the work of biologists in Mexico to survey and monitor populations of this species and others, with the help of local communities. Environmental awareness campaigns and habitat protection advocacy are also key elements in the defense of this species.

To learn more about the plight of threatened turtles in Mexico and Central America, explore our Impact Report.

• Pictured: Pacific Coast Musk Turtle (Staurotypus salvinii)
• Countries of Origin: El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico
• Habitat: Coastal freshwater lagoons, seasonal pools and lakes; narrow streams and rivers close to deltas in Pacific Coastal regions
• Wild Population: Decreasing throughout its distribution range; extirpated locally in some regions of the Mexican Pacific
• IUCN Red List Status: Near Threatened* *Likely to be uplisted in 2024 based on recent assessment
• Threats: Habitat destruction and alteration; collection for the food and pet trades

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