Blatant Reality

There are two House bills currently being pushed by conservation and environmental groups that would restrict the amount of turtle a person could catch in the state of South Carolina. As of right now, there are no laws at all that limit the amount a turtles caught. Therefore, persons from other states are allowed to catch turtles unrestricted in South Carolina and bring them back home.

You might not think that turtle catching would be a problem but the demand for turtle meat to be exported to Asia had risen in recent years. Therefore, people in the US met that demand by exporting turtles caught in the wild. This demand, some claim, is putting to large of a strain on the wild populations of turtles.

That is why the bills H.4392 and H.3275 have been introduced. H.4392 would limit the amount of turtles a person can catch and keep without a permit from the state and H.3275 would make it unlawful to export for commercial purposes live seawater or freshwater turtles caught in the wild.

I don’t know exactly if these two bills are the right way to head off this potential problem, but I do feel it is a good idea to at least introduce some regulation on this topic. I know that in my home state of Missouri we have laws much like H.4392 that cover basically all reptile and amphibian species in the state. As the news articles states, with rising oil prices and Asia getting better at raising turtles themselves, the need for this kind of business is diminishing. Therefore, the likelihood of this law economically affecting to many people will be minimal.

I may be biases but I know one of my favorite things to to back in Missouri when I was younger (and even now to some extent) is to go one of our many spring water stream and see how many turtles and other reptiles I could catch and release in a day. It would be a shame that South Carolina’s future children don’t have the same opportunities I did growing up in Missouri.