Head-starting the giant sideneck river turtle (Podocnemis expansa): turtles and people in the middle orinoco, Venezuela

Published source details Peñaloza C.L., Hernández O. & Espín R. (2015) Head-starting the giant sideneck river turtle (Podocnemis expansa): turtles and people in the middle orinoco, Venezuela. Herpetological Conservation and Biology, 10, 472-488.
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This study is summarised as evidence for the following.

	Action	Category
	Head-start wild-caught reptiles for release: Tortoises, terrapins, side-necked & softshell turtles Action Link

Head-start wild-caught reptiles for release: Tortoises, terrapins, side-necked & softshell turtles

A controlled study in 2008 in a river basin in middle Orinoco, Venezuela (Peñaloza et al. 2015) found that released head-started giant sideneck river turtles Podocnemis expansa survived in the wild for up to 14 years. Eighteen years after the start of a conservation programme, 99 of 174 (57%) giant sideneck turtles caught during monitoring were head-started turtles that had survived in the wild for up to 14 years. Excluding newly released head-started turtles, the size distributions of head-started and wild turtles were similar (see original paper for details). The authors reported that head-started turtles were yet to reach a size comparable to mature wild turtles. In 1992, a programme to head-start and release giant sideneck river turtles after one year in captivity began, with around 350,000 turtles released in total. In April–June 2008, turtle surveys were carried out along a 50 km stretch of river by pulling a trawl net (5 cm mesh) between two boats, or between one boat and people on land. All caught turtles were classified as head-started or wild, measured, sexed, and individually marked before being re-released.

(Summarised by: Katie Sainsbury)