THE NEW YORK TIMES – A woman pleaded guilty on Friday to attempting to smuggle 29 Eastern box turtles, a protected species, that were individually wrapped in socks inside a duffle bag as she tried to paddle in an inflatable kayak across a lake from Vermont to Canada over the summer, officials said.
The woman, Wan Yee Ng, of Hong Kong, was arrested in June at a rental residence in Canaan, Vt., as she was about to enter into the kayak with the bag on Lake Wallace, according to a statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont.
In August, she was charged with attempting to export merchandise contrary to law. Ms. Ng, who faces up to 10 years in prison, is scheduled to be sentenced in December.
According to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint, Ms. Ng, who was living in Canada, drew the attention of the U.S. Border Patrol at the Beecher Falls Station in Canaan after she repeatedly rented the same Vermont residence on Lake Wallace, which has shores in Canada and the United States and has been used in the past for smuggling.
On the morning of June 26, agents saw Ms. Ng carrying a duffle bag from the rented residence to the inflatable kayak near the water’s edge, prosecutors said.
“The wide variety of uses as well as the simple fact that they can be transported and kept alive for long periods of time post-capture has made turtles highly desirable ingredients for traditional medicine.” – ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS NETWORK
At the time, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police notified U.S. border agents that two people, one of whom was believed to be Ms. Ng’s husband, had launched an inflatable watercraft on the Canadian side of the lake and started to paddle toward the United States, according to prosecutors.
Agents arrived at the rental residence in Vermont as Ms. Ng was preparing to depart …
Chinese Traditional Medicine Threatens Turtle Populations
Despite a lack of scientific evidence demonstrating a causative link between turtle consumption and medicinal benefits, many people in China believe they provide benefits such as maintaining youthful beauty in women and improving sexual function in men.
ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS NETWORK – For thousands of years, turtles have been used in Chinese traditional medicine to treat a wide variety of ailments and diseases.
Originally published in the journal Radiata and recently republished HerpDigest David S. Lee and Liao Shi Kun write, “[In Chinese culture] turtles are symbolic of long life, personal wealth, fertility, strength, and happy households.”
Because of these beliefs and their symbolic importance, turtles have been highly sought after for more than 3,000 years. However, in recent years, China’s economy has changed in a way that has become increasingly threatening to the country’s wild turtle populations.
The most common species used are the yellow pond turtle (Mauremys mutica), the Chinese three-striped box turtle (Cuora trifasciata), the yellow-margined box turtle (Cuora flavomarginata), the Chinese big-headed turtle (Platysternon megacephalum), Reeves’ turtle (Mauremys reevesii), the red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans) and Chinese soft-shell turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis).
Many of these species — including the Chinese three-striped and yellow margined box turtle and the Chinese big-headed turtle — are either extinct or are dangerously close to it in the wild.
In traditional medicine, every last part of the turtle is consumed, including their turtle meat, as well as their skin, heads, eggs, shells and even their blood, urine, and bile. The eggs, blood and bile are all added to wine to provide particular cures, whereas the skin and head are eaten alone.
The shell can either be ground into powder or boiled in water, and the urine is used as drops in the ear or consumed as a beverage.
These various concoctions are believed to cure coughs, prolapse of the rectum, deafness, cancer and everything in between.
