Back in March, we reported Vang bill will end MN commercial turtle selling; language from the bill has been incorporated into HF2209, the Minnesota House omnibus environment and natural resource bill (70.17-70.22).
Over at the Minnesota Senate, the authors of the companion bill, SF2314 (2nd engrossment), have much different plans for the North Star State's turtle population.
Herpetologist Christopher E. Smith tweeted on Saturday:
Republicans in the MN Senate are not only NOT supporting turtle conservation, now they are trying to expand the unsustainable commercial harvest of turtles in MN via SF 2314. #mnleg 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 pic.twitter.com/2nZRkBwaZI
— Christopher E. Smith (@FieldEcology) April 13, 2019
Why is the senate language a disaster for Minnesota's turtles? As we noted in our earlier post:
But turtles in Minnesota continue to be under pressure, says wildlife biologist Christopher Smith, who sits on the Board of Directors for the Center for North American Herpetology (CNAH).
On March 5, Smith testified in favor of first-term Brooklyn Center DFL state representative Samantha Vang's HF749, a bill that end the renewal and transfer of turtle seller and turtle seller's apprentice licenses. Recreational turtle licenses to gather turtles for personal use would remain legal and a person with "an aquatic farm license with a turtle endorsement or a private fish hatchery license with a turtle endorsement" could "sell, obtain, possess, transport, and propagate turtles and turtle eggs."
According to Smith, many states have banned commercial turtle sellers, and those conservation measures have caused more pressure to be put on Minnesota's turtle population--and harvest pressures are not sustainable for the slow-growing creatures.
Since turtles don't have lobbyists, we hope our Minnesota readers will contact their state senators and urge them to oppose expansion of commercial turtle harvests in the state.
There are other unfortunate passages in the senate bill and we will be covering them over the next week while the Minnesota legislature is out on its Easter/Passover break.
For more information on Minnesota's turtles, check out this 2011 pdf on the DNR's website (note that it was created while snapping turtles were still considered a species of special concern).
Photo: A common snapping turtle--which is not that common anymore--via the Minnesota Zoo.
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Since 2012 our dog protection bill has never gotten a hearing in the House Enviro committee. It's seen bi-partisan obstruction. This virtually guarantees that more dogs will be killed this trapping season and more families will be grieving the loss of their dog at Christmas.
We are actively pushing that our bill gets amended onto the omnibus bill.
Posted by: John Reynolds | Apr 14, 2019 at 07:16 AM