Native Indian turtles face U.S. slider threat across Northeast

Herpetologists have warned that the invasive red-eared slider, released in natural water bodies by people who keep them as ‘cute’ pets, could turn nasty for 29 native species of turtles and tortoises.

A ‘cute’ American turtle popular as a pet is threatening to invade the natural water bodies across the Northeast, home to 21 of the 29 vulnerable native Indian species of freshwater turtles and tortoises. Between August 2018 and June 2019, a team of herpetologists from NGO Help Earth found red-eared sliders in the Deepor Beel Wildlife Sanctuary and the Ugratara temple pond – both in Guwahati. They published the “grim” finding in ‘Reptiles & Amphibians’, journal of the U.S.-based International Reptile Conservation Foundation in August 2020. But the alarm was raised after H.T. Lalremsanga and eight others from Mizoram University’s Department of Zoology published another report in the same journal in April this year. Their report said a red-eared slider was collected from an unnamed stream, connected to the Tlawng River, on a farm near Mizoram capital Aizawl.