KARACHI: The Sindh wildlife department on Thursday released 161 freshwater turtles of the 17 species confiscated a day earlier into the Haleji Lake.

Nine other turtles had died before they could be released into the wildlife sanctuary in Thatta district.

The turtles, all adult females weighing between one and six kilograms, were identified as black pond turtles (also called black spotted turtles), an endangered species protected under the provincial wildlife law.

According to wildlife officials, the department team acting on a tip-off headed to the Superhighway and found some people loading boxes into two cars near the Northern Bypass Bridge.

“We were told that turtles are being transported to Karachi from Punjab. As we arrived there, the four people, two of them seated in the car, managed to escape,” said Adnan Hamid Khan, head of the wildlife department’s marine turtle conservation unit, adding that a case had been registered.

According to him, some female turtles also laid eggs in the wildlife office where they had been kept before their release.

During the past one year, there have been a number of incidents in which freshwater turtles were either found abandoned at different places in the city or confiscated while being transported.

Sources said international trade of freshwater turtles was a lucrative business and causing severe pressure on the population of these species across the country. The population of freshwater turtles (the country has eight species) was fast declining due to their illegal poaching, they said.

Sindh and Punjab provinces were considered major hotspots for illegal turtle trade, the sources added.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2016