A small group of one of India’s most-threatened turtles, the northern river terrapin, is finding
refuge in four breeding ponds in the
Sundarbans in West Bengal, under an ambitious plan to repopulate the
species in the wild.
The terrapin is one of five freshwater
turtles among the world’s 50
most-threatened turtles. Their fragile state is documented in Turtles
in Trouble, published for 2018 by the Turtle Conservation Coalition, a consortium of
conservation organisations.
India’s “top five” at-risk
include Batagur baska, the
northern river terrapin found in the Sundarbans,
and the red-crowned roof turtle, Batagur
kachuga, from the National Chambal
Sanctuary, spread across Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
Others are Chitra indica, the
South Asian narrow-headed softshell turtle in the gangetic river system, Nilssonia
nigricans, or black softshell turtle, encountered in temple
ponds in north Bengal and Assam,
and Pelochelys cantorii, the
Asian giant softshell turtle in the eastern
coast.
The northern river terrapin, the red-crowned roof turtle and giant softshell turtle are critically
endangered, as per the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature,
while the black softshell is extinct in the wild, and the narrow-headed
softshell, endangered.
What is IUCN?
The International Union
for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a membership Union uniquely
composed of both government and civil society organisations. It provides
public, private and non-governmental organisations with the knowledge and tools
that enable human progress, economic development and nature conservation to
take place together.
Created in 1948, IUCN has evolved
into the world’s largest and most diverse environmental network. IUCN experts
are organised into six commissions dedicated to species survival, environmental
law, protected areas, social and economic policy, ecosystem management, and
education and communication.
What is Red List?
The IUCN Red List of Threatened
Species™ provides taxonomic, conservation status and distribution information
on plants, fungi and animals that have been globally evaluated using the IUCN
Red List Categories and Criteria. This system is designed to determine the
relative risk of extinction, and the main purpose of the IUCN Red List is to
catalogue and highlight those plants and animals that are facing a higher risk
of global extinction (i.e. those listed as Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable).
The IUCN Red List also includes information on plants, fungi and animals that
are categorized as Extinct or Extinct in the Wild;
on taxa that cannot be evaluated because of insufficient information (i.e.,
are Data Deficient); and on plants, fungi and animals that are
either close to meeting the threatened thresholds or that would be threatened
were it not for an ongoing taxon-specific conservation programme (i.e.,
are Near Threatened).
Note: Readers are encouraged to Wikipedia terms highlighted in red; for convenience there is a wiki search tool on the left hand side
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