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They maintained that, before importing the turtles, they didn’t realize these animals were harmful.
Forty tons or 24,000 red-eared sliders are being bred in Mai Dam hamlet in the southern province of Vinh Long by the company. Around 5200 turtles have died because of hunger and hot weather.
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Vinh Long officials noted that they didn’t know the turtles could harm the environment, so they allowed Can Tho Seafood Import-Export JS Company to import them.
Provincial authorities and the turtle importer recently met to define measures to control the turtles, including ways to prevent their escape from the farms and discouraging egg-hatching.
The importer was instructed to send these turtles out of Vietnam by September 2010.
Can Tho Seafood Import-Export JS Company Director Vo Dong Duc has been working in the fisheries industry for 20 years. He stated that he has no idea that red-eared turtles were harmful when he imported them. The firm will return the animals to the US in the next several weeks.
Red-eared sliders are a semi-aquatic turtle belonging to the family Emydidae and a subspecies of the pond slider. It is a native of the southern US, but it has become common in various areas of the world due to the pet trade.
Red-eared sliders are omnivores and eat a variety of animal and plant materials in the wild including, but not limited to fish, crayfish, carrion, tadpoles, snails, crickets, wax worms, aquatic insects and numerous aquatic plant species. The captive diet for pet red-eared sliders should be a varied diet consisting of invertebrates such as worms, aquatic and land plants, and other natural foods. They should never be fed commercial dog food or cat food. As they grow larger and older, they become increasingly herbivorous.
The IUCN lists this animal among 100 most dangerous exotic animals in the world.
PV