Anthropogenic Threats to Alligator Snapping Turtles (Chelydridae: Macrochelys)

Abstract - With the conservation status of Macrochelys (alligator snapping turtles) being examined at the national level, our objective was to compile categorical data on threats from anthropogenic interactions. We included information from (1) author-collected anecdotes on human–turtle interactions and (2) radiographs to assess the prevalence of ingested fishing hooks. We placed 173 interactions involving 192 incidents into 9 IUCN threat categories and found bycatch involving fish hooks to be 4 times more numerous than the second-most numerous threat, turtle persecution. Fishing bycatch resulted in a high proportion of turtle mortalities (39%), and bycatch incidents in several cases preceded the highest-mortality threat (53%), persecution of individuals involving shooting or blunt trauma. We recommend fishing bycatch-mitigation measures and educational efforts to help conserve Macrochelys.

• Publication year

  2023

• Venue

  Southeastern naturalist (Steuben, Me.)

• Publication date

  2023-06-14

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1656/058.022.0sp1202
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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