In a search and fluvial control operation, the Colombian Navy recovered two hicoteas (Trachemys callirostris) and one Carranchian (Mesoclemmys dahli), which were being transported illegally aboard a rudimentary ship in the area known as Punta Las Vacas, in the municipality of Turbo, in the department of Antioquia.
The animals rescued by Units of the Urabá Coast Guard Station were released in an interagency coordination with the environmental authority, Autonomous Regional Corporation for the Sustainable Development of Chocó - Codechocó, in the mouths of the Atrato river, near the Cienaga de Matuntugo , where they have the necessary conditions for their survival and development.
It should be noted that the hicotea is a representative animal of the swamps of the Caribbean, in Colombia and Venezuela, and is part of the diet of the people of the Atlantic coast, especially at Easter. Its illegal commercialization has been increasing, to the point that today it is considered the most trafficked type of turtle in the country.
For its part, the Carranchian turtle only inhabits the tropical dry forest of the Colombian Caribbean, and nowhere else in the world, but only eight percent of the country's nine million original hectares remain, according to the Research Institute of Biological Resources Alexander von Humboldt. For this reason, this type of wildlife is classified as endangered.
Source: press - Colombian Navy
