The Malayan Box Turtle, which used to be a commonly seen animal in Indonesia, is now facing extermination due to the massive illegal sale.
The flesh of the turtle is used in Chinese medicine, so a great number of animals are sold in Singapore and Hong Kong but an increasing number of turtles are now also being sold as pets for the European and American market.
The official numbers of exported animals is 18.000, but based on survey on 18 dealers on Java, Sulavesi and Sumatra the WWF (World wide fund for nature) estimates that about 2 million turtles are sold to foreign buyers each year.
“If this goes on the turtle will get systematically exterminated from Indonesia, the authorities must stop the illegal trade and find a realistic maximum on the number of exported animals”, says biologist Tommy Dybbro from WWF Denmark.
