We were very excited this week to receive this picture from Herilala Randriamahazo, our Tortoise Conservation Coordinator in Madagascar. This is our first glimpse at the school that the TSA is building in the village of Antsakoamasy! In March 2011, Rick Hudson traveled to Madagascar and met up with Christina Castellano (The Orianne Soceity) and Herilala to develop a strategy to protect remaining populations of the rapidly disappearing radiated tortoise. You can read a full report about their trip here.

During their visit, they met with the leaders of Antsakoamasy, a village that had previously been identified as having a strong protective attitude toward the tortoises that remain in the area. Prior to their visit, Herilala had been working for many months to forge a relationship with the community of Antsakoamasy and while Rick and Christina were visiting, a formal agreement was made with the village: in exchange for continued protection of radiated tortoises, the TSA agreed to build the community a school. The agreement was commemorated with a traditional zebu festival in March and there is no doubt that the school's grand opening in March 2012 will be celebrated with equal vigor!

The TSA is confident that providing conservation incentives like these will encourage other villages in Madagascar to protect and value their tortoises. Hopefully, this collaboration will serve as a model for future conservation initiatives in other areas of the country.

You may have read about the recent reintroduction of confiscated radiated tortoises into the Ampotaka sacred forest in September. These tortoises (157 total) had been confiscated from Ivato International Airport in July and the TSA was appointed by the authority to look after them. All of the tortoises were measured and weighed as part of their exam prior to release. After a full evaluation, ten juvenile tortoises did not meet the release criteria on September 19 and were instead kept in the village of Ampotaka to allow for a longer recovery period prior to their reintroduction.

Ampotoka is the site of a prior tortoise release in March 2011 and has a history of collaboration with the TSA. During their meetings with the TSA in March, local leaders communicated a commitment to tortoise protection in their sacred forest. However, they faced many challenges - primarily an inability to communicate with authorities to report poaching in the area. To do so, they had to walk for days to Beloha because phone communication was not avaiable. At that time, the TSA agreed to buy a cell phone for the village.

For the second time in 6 months, Rick Hudson (TSA) and Christina Castellano (The Orianne Society) teamed up to work in the south of Madagascar, continuing to look for solutions to the ongoing Radiated Tortoise crisis (see March 2011 trip report here). We came prepared this time with a highly capable field crew, the Mozambique-based Moz Images, consisting of cameraman Chris Scarffe and photo-journalist Aaron Gekoski.  Moz Images specializes in underwater photography but does land-based projects too, and they are highly adept at exposing various wildlife issues globally.  Their most recent project, Shiver, examines the shark-finning industry in Mozambique, click here to view a clip. The film that they were working on during this trip will be a short six-minute video, in three languages (French, English and Malagasy) that will be widely available for posting on various web and social media sites in order to expose the Radiated tortoise tragedy internationally. It will also be made available to TV stations in Madagascar and shown to many villages throughout southern Madagascar, particularly those impacted by, or participating in, tortoise poaching. 

196 Critically Endangered tortoises were seized at Ivato International Airport on the night of July 24. The group included 168 Radiated Tortoises (Astrochelys radiata), 27 Ploughshare Tortoises (Astrochelys yniphora) and one Spider Tortoise (Pyxis). According to the Eaux & Forêts staff at Ivato Airport, a car brought three suitcases directly to the plane, circumventing security screening. The person in charge of loading the luggage into the plane suggested that the bags be checked for safety purposes, at which time the tortoises were discovered.

Two passengers were arrested, one of whom is already well-known by customs personnel. The smugglers’ final intended destination was Indonesia, by way of Nairobi and Dubai. The Turtle Survival Alliance has been charged with the care of all of the Radiated Tortoises, while the Ploughshare Tortoises were sent to the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. Herilala Randriamahazo (TSA Malagasy Tortoise Conservation Coordinator) is currently caring for the Radiated Tortoises, most of which are very young, in the gardens of the Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership in Antananarivo where he is based.

Many of the Radiated Tortoises are weak and in poor health after their ordeal. After they are able to fully recover, Herilala hopes to reintroduce them in the sacred forest of Ampotoka in the Androy Region, where a collaboration has already been established to release confiscated tortoises.  We will keep you posted on their progress. (Photo credit: Mamy Mael)

We arrive in Madagascar around midnight on March 15 and by the time we get our bags and to the hotel it’s early morning on March 16. I am traveling with Christina Castellano, the newly appointed Director of Turtle Conservation Programs for The Orianne Society. She has a long-standing interest in Madagascar and intends to develop a comprehensive science-based program aimed at monitoring key populations of both radiated and spider tortoises. We are met at the airport by Herilala Randriamahazo, TSA’s Director of Tortoise Conservation in Madagascar. It has been exactly one year since I was last here and reported on the developing crisis with radiated tortoises in the south and the need for urgent conservation action. Together, Christina and I hope to determine how to best approach this problem, and to identify key populations that can still be protected. There is a sense of urgency to this mission because it appears that the situation may have finally reached the tipping point. After holding their own despite years of being harvested for food, the beautiful Radiated tortoise may be on its final legs. Our challenge is to determine a strategy that will at least preserve some healthy populations, and that solution will likely lie at the local community level. Southern Madagascar is a vast rural region where there is little capacity for enforcement of tortoise poaching activity. Enforcement is constrained by a poor communications network, and lack of transportation by officials, and lack of knowledge of the laws.

TSA Madagascar recently participated in a very special event to raise awareness for the endangered radiated tortoise. A soccer tournament was organized and sponsored in Antananarivo on December 11-12 by Eco-Sys Actions and Salamandra Nature (conservation NGOs) and their partners. The main objective of the event, held at Alarobia Stadium, was to raise public awareness by using soccer - a very popular sport in Madagascar.

Herilala Randriamahazo (TSA’s full-time Malagasy Tortoise Conservation Coordinator) has only been at work in his new position for a little over a month. However, he has already been able to assist with the apprehension of radiated tortoise poachers - saving a number of tortoises before they were killed.

We are pleased to announce that the TSA has hired Herilala Randriamahazo, a long – time tortoise conservation biologist, as our full-time Malagasy Tortoise Conservation Coordinator.

Team Madagascar is Rick Hudson (Fort Worth Zoo/TSA), Brian Horne (San Diego Zoo/TSA), Bonnie Raphael, DVM and Berni Leahy (Wildlife Conservation Society).  We are guided by Herilala Randrianmahazo (WCS Madagascar) and accompanied by Tsanta, a 5th year veterinary student.

Goals and objectives:

1) Assist the WCS veterinary team in sampling Radiated Tortoise populations at Cap St. Marie Special Reserve, for disease screening (herpes virus, mycoplasma, iridovirus and intranuclear coccidia), parasites and physiologic blood values; this is a repeat of some of the work done in 1998 to detect if any changes have occurred.
2) Conduct pre-release health screen exams on a group of 50 radiata at Village des Tortues in Ifaty that are due to be released at Lac Tsiamananpetsoa in late 2010;
3) Collect samples from wild animals at Lac Tsimanampetsotsa for disease screening prior to this release;
4) Continue to collect GPS data on Spider Tortoise, Pyxis arachnoides, populations throughout coastal southwest Madagascar for the ongoing GIS mapping project;
5) Collect information for a grant proposal to secure funding to develop a model community-based protection program for Radiated Tortoises.  Potential target sites are Cap St Marie, Lavavolo and Lac Tsiamananpetsoa.
6) Provide training to veterinary student, Tsanta, from the veterinary school in Tana.

Shortly after arriving in the small town of Beloha, word of our arrival spread quickly. Not many “vazas”, a Malagsy term for light skinned foreigners, come to this area of Madagascar, especially ones studying tortoises.  We definitely drew some curious stares and in a manner of minutes we had offers to see tortoises. Although there was a light rain and the week’s first cold coca-cola was beckoning, I decided to accept the offer to see some tortoises. Sadly, the locals took me to the town’s trash dump to show me the remains of at least a dozen recently butchered Radiated Tortoises (Astrochelys radiata).  I had thought that perhaps I would see some pet tortoises or maybe a few juvenile animals for sale, but to see the adult carapaces of one of the world’s most strikingly beautiful tortoises mixed with the town’s refuge of broken baskets, old flip flops, and tattered clothing was a stark dichotomy of splendor and repulsion. Minutes later my first cold coca-cola after a week of hot and dirty fieldwork didn’t taste so refreshing after all.