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Marine Turtle Newsletter 104:20, © 2004
Central & South American Terrestrial & Freshwater Chelonian Session: 24th International Sea Turtle Symposium 2004
Chuck Schaffer
13811 Tortuga Point Drive, Jacksonville, FL 32225 Florida, USA (E-mail: chelonian1@aol.com)
This special lunch event, in its second year, offered several excellent presentations, followed by questions and discussion in the hallway. Although the Asian Turtle Crisis, focus of last year’s session, occupies the majority of headlines, terrestrial and freshwater chelonians are impacted worldwide. As Central and South America receive relatively little coverage, this session was especially welcome. As with last year’s session, the opportunity to examine the plight of non-marine turtles by the marine turtle community was accented by the presence of researchers who might not otherwise have attended a conference of this type. As the aim of the session was to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, field methodology, and philosophy between in and ex-situ, marine and non-marine chelonian researchers and conservationists, we appear to have succeeded again. This year’s speakers covered topics with threads common to terrestrial, freshwater and marine turtles. Chuck Schaffer provided a brief summary of early chelonian studies, common to marine and non-marine turtles, following their images from Europe the 1400s to the Rich Coast in the 1600 to 1800s. Rafael Arturo Acuña Mesén presented an overview of the Central American chelonian fauna, dispelling myths and replacing them with the cold hard reality facing both marine and non-marine turtles. Anny Chaves considered habitat, another important shared issue. Andres Estrades covered the illegal trade in Uruguayan turtles. And Peter dwelled upon the ultimate reality of just how rare an extant chelonian can be – in the case of the Pinta Island tortoise – reduced to a single individual.