Turtle Farms

One of my more odd encounters at the Hawaiian supermarket in Alhambra was live turtles in the seafood section. Both some big flat-shelled ones, and some smaller more normal looking ones were present.

This got me thinking. Where did the turtles come from? Turtles have had a really bad past few years, particularly in Asia where many species have been eaten to the edge of extinction.

Well maybe these Turtles came from the wild. Recently Florida closed its waters to turtle fishing along with nearby states though. Just too many were being shipped to Asia. The trade of turtles to Asia has not completely ended however. 

A more likely source though was a turtle farm. Surprisingly I had never heard of them but there are huge turtle farms popping up around the world. They have even produced a few Billionaires in Asia. I guess they are fairly cheap to feed and can be grown at moderate densities. It sounds like they have had trouble reducing pressure on wild stocks though, largely because there is a lot of demand for rare turtles as breeding stock.