300 Tortoises smuggled and recovered

[bettinge]

WOW, any guesses on the market value of these would be here in the USA? I'm guessing about $300-350K.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g4FUc5onGTx2G-M1i2avqJLEFpUAD9GAV0OO0

 

[egyptiandan]

Glad they are going back to Madagascar. I think that price range is about right.

Danny

 

[dmmj]

wow tortoises and weed? someone was going for the big time, I noticed it said they are sold to collectors as pets and food, don't you think they would get more money as pets rather than food?

 

[TylerStewart]

wow tortoises and weed? someone was going for the big time, I noticed it said they are sold to collectors as pets and food, don't you think they would get more money as pets rather than food?

You'd think - but there's probably a lot less people watching the food market than the pet market, so it would be a quicker, simpler sale in the food market. It'd be pretty difficult to throw 300 of these types of torts into a pet trade (particularly in the US) without red flags going up. In a food market, it would probably go unnoticed. They also may have just assumed they were headed to a food market, since shipments like this in the past were headed to a food market.

 

[egyptiandan]

They were probably headed for China, but right now the pet trade in China is out doing the food markets for prices of tortoises. Even with China participating in CITES, it's pretty easy to smuggle animals into China.

Danny

 

[reptylefreek]

so glad they are doing the right thing and returning them to Madagascar. wonder what madagascar weed is like?

 

[RichardS]

The yniphora in the photo is really impressive.