Turtle Meat in the U.S.

[TAPrice]

At one time, Louisiana was the only state where you could legally buy turtle meat. Is this still the case?

[budrichard]

Turtles are for sale at Chinese groceries in Chicago.

Many states including where i live, Wisconsin have a regulation against selling wild game harvested by a licensed hunter. There generally is a license specifically for commercial fishers that allows wild fishing under controlled harvesting. This may the source of the problem you described but if a farm raised product, I don't know of any specific state that prohibits the sale of farm raised turtle.-Dick

[emsny]

Turtles may be seen in New York's Chinatown(s) too.

[TAPrice]

Are these live turtles?

[SundaySous]

When I was a kid you would see it occasionally in supermarkets or special order it. I wonder if your butcher/fish monger could get it. Of course when I was a kid there was no Mc Donalds yet.

We had a neighbor that grew up in Boston and she used to serve it like once a month. Man I miss being a kid.

[mcdowell]

Can't help you with fresh sources, but looks like there are at least two web sites where you can order, and who don't seem to have shipping restrictions w/in the US:

www.crawfish.cc

www.exoticmeats.com

$15-20lb + hellacious shipping. You'd have to love turtle.

[Dignan]

Do you have a cite for this notion that Louisiana was the only state in which one could buy turtle meat?

[TAPrice]

Do you have a cite for this notion that Louisiana was the only state in which one could buy turtle meat?

←

Here is the abstract from a 2000 academic article stating that snapping turtle meat is only legally sold in Louisiana:

Much of the demand for turtle meat in North America and Europe during the past four centuries has been met using green turtle (Chelonia mydas) and other marine turtles. As stocks of marine turtles dwindled, harvest of the alligator snapping turtle (Macroclemys temminckii), the largest freshwater turtle in North America, increased in the south-eastern USA. As a result, this species has declined and is now protected in every state of the USA except Louisiana. There is concern that the remaining legal trade in turtle products may serve as a cover for illegally harvested species. To assess the composition of species in commerce, we purchased 36 putative turtle meat products in Louisiana and Florida. Using cytochrome b and control region sequences of the mitochondrial genome, we identified 19 samples as common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina), three as Florida softshell (Apalone ferox), one provisionally as softshell turtle (Apalone sp.), one as alligator snapping turtle, and eight as American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis). It appears that M. temminckii is no longer the predominant species in markets of Louisiana. The presence of alligator meat in a quarter of the samples indicates that the trade in turtle products is not entirely legitimate. As is often the case for unsustainable wildlife harvests, large, esteemed species, such as green turtle and alligator snapper, have been replaced by smaller, more-abundant or mislabelled species, a phenomenon we refer to as the mock turtle syndrome.

I've read the full article, but it's not freely available electronically. What's not clear to me, even after reading this, is whether only alligator snapping turtles are restricted in other states or all turtles (and I'm pretty sure we'd be talking about regular snapping turtles).

[Patapsco Mike]

You could buy diamondback terrapins by the bushel in Cambridge, MD this time last year. Since the harvesting moratorium went into effect this spring, I'm not sure they would still carry them. But they have always been legal for sale in MD.

As to snapping turtle, I don't know. I've never seen it, but I've never looked for it so...

Edited September 11, 2007 by Patapsco Mike (log)

[Holly Moore]

As far as I know, Bookbinder's justly famous Snapper Soup is made with genuine turtle.

[Mayhaw Man]

When I was in high school (mid 70's just in case you are keeping score) I knew a couple of guys whose dads were freshwater fisherman (there are harder ways to make a living in the Delta, but you would have to look pretty damned hard to find one) and a big part of their income was catching and selling turtles, primarily alligator snapping turtles, but also big softshells. It was completely legal at that point and I seem to remember that they caught alot of them up North (North where I grew up was anything above the Arkansas line) in the Camden part of the Ouachita River and it's offshoots. I would think that was legal at that time as well. I'm assuming that it still is as long as you have a commercial fishing license, but I really don't know. I bow to Todd on the legal score. Besides, I don't like cleaning the things (wanna talk about gross?!) so I prefer to buy the meat when I occasionally need it.

My own turtle bubble was burst when I was 15 or so and the Federal government, looking out for our good health and well being, banned the sale of wild caught map turtles (small ones for use in pet shops) because of concerns about salmonella. Now, why do I remember this little turtle fact? Because my brother Tom and I and our 4 horse Mercury on our 14 foot flat could catch 30 or 40 a day and sell them DIRECTLY to the guy that had the only pet shop in town. We got a quarter a pop and a dollar for the occasional small softshell. It was great money and something we could do while fishing at the same time in the bayou behind our house. Man were we pissed when they ruined that little goldmine.

[Dignan]

I've read the full article, but it's not freely available electronically. What's not clear to me, even after reading this, is whether only alligator snapping turtles are restricted in other states or all turtles (and I'm pretty sure we'd be talking about regular snapping turtles).

←

The abstract indicates that it is alligator snapping turtles that are prohibited, because the concern is that alligator snapping turtles might be sold but labled as other, legal, species. "...[W]e purchased 36 putative turtle meat products in Louisiana and Florida." I think that's what they're saying.