Ontario snapping turtle endangered yet hunted
19.05.12
The York Regional police officers thought they’d interrupted a drug shipment during the routine traffic stop.
The car, travelling the back roads of Whitchurch-Stouffville, 50 kilometres northeast of Toronto, smelled dank, swampy. In it, the two men — one with an outstanding warrant out against him — were nervous. Their clothes were wet. Large tote boxes filled the vehicle, recalls York Regional police Constable Mark Hanna, who suspected a grow-op crew was transporting plants.
Then Hanna heard the throaty “ribbit, ribbit” of frogs.
Even odder? The stash inside those damp boxes.
“I’m expecting when you open up these totes that there’s going to be marijuana in there,” says Hanna, recalling the Oct. 9, 2002, incident.
“I mean, when a turtle pokes it head out, it’s like, ‘Surprise!’”
The officers had uncovered a wildlife heist. The poachers who’d plundered the Lake Scugog area had 10 live snapping turtles, 123 bullfrogs and two Midland painted turtles — animals likely destined for restaurant tables or the underground exotic pet industry.
Source: Toronto Star