Supporting efforts to save the world’s tiniest turtle

Auckland Zoo has recently joined efforts to support Turtle Island.org and its highly skilled team of conservationists – urgently working to save the world’s tiniest freshwater turtle - Mexico’s imperilled Vallarta mud turtle.

Expanding tourism in the rapidly growing beachside city of Puerto Vallarta on Mexico’s west coast has resulted in 99% of this Critically Endangered endemic turtle’s habitat being destroyed. That’s left it with an area of less than 20ha to live in! Within the next five years, this area is also expected to be developed if it cannot be purchased by a conservation initiative.

In addition to this drastic loss of its habitat (coastal streams and wetlands within Puerto Vallarta and the Bahia de Banderas Valley), this tiny turtle is often run over when trying to cross the many roads that run between the remaining habitat fragments.

Additionally, its attractiveness in both size and colour (it grows to just 100mm in length and males have a striking bright yellow spot on the top of their heads) has made it a target species for the international pet trade.

Today the Vallarta mud turtle, only discovered and described in 2018, has an estimated population of less than 500 animals.

To prevent this precious turtle’s extinction, the Turtle Island team - world-renowned for their mahi rescuing, researching, breeding, and rewilding threatened turtle species - are building a conservation centre at nearby Guadalajara University, with whom they work closely.

Here they will house the 110 Vallarta mud turtles they have already rescued from the wild and establish a breeding programme from this valuable gene pool. Currently Turtle Island is also looking into options to purchase/lease land (a challenging task due to the high value of local real estate!) so that in the future, it could establish semi-wild populations.

“Through our Conservation Fund, which our visitors contribute to via their entry ticket, we’re delighted we can play a small part in helping Turtle Island,” says the Zoo’s Conservation Fund administrator Michelle Whybrow.

“This Austria-based NGO is a scientific and research organisation, and like us a zoo, with extensive experience and success in both in-situ (in the wild) and ex-situ (outside of the wild) efforts for some of the world’s most threatened and overlooked turtle species.  Their inspirational team is determined to ensure the future of world’s tiniest turtle, and we look forward to sharing more updates on their progress.

You can find out more about Turtle Island here.