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For more information, click on this link to see the regulations explained.
Diamondback terrapins are one of the treasures of the Chesapeake Bay. Once a traditional food source, terrapin were "fished” with such intensity that their populations crashed by the late 1920’s.
Today market demand has surged again; not for local consumption but for urban Asian food markets both here and overseas. Often sold by out-of-state dealers, one will purchase them by the ton. While we are focused on the health of terrapin populations, treatment during shipping, in markets and preparation for cooking is less than humane.
Terrapin, like all turtles, have life spans that are more similar to our own than to any fish. In Maryland terrapin mature at 8-13 years of age and may live well beyond their 50’s. Like sea turtles, very few young survive to become adults themselves.
Combined with threats that include drowning in crab and eel pots and nets, getting hit by cars on coastal roads, predation of nests and loss of nesting habitat, turtle biologists all agree that terrapins cannot sustain a commercial fishery.
One study on the Patuxent documents a 75% decline. Since terrapins stay close to home and live in local populations, we want to make sure we don’t lose them again from any of the Chesapeake’s shores.
Maryland is one of the last states to allow the commercial fishing of terrapin. Join us and ask our new Governor O'Malley and the DNR Fisheries Service to protect the Chesapeake Bay’s terrapin populations and close the terrapin fishery once and for us all and sign The Terrapin Petition - thanks!
To see the image credits on the petition's cover page, use the Zoom feature on your pdf viewer or visit their links directly:
Female with golden shell & male and female together; this site is also great for terrapin information: http://yellowfin.dnr.sc.gov/ACEHerpGuide/Pages/Turtles/ Emydidae/Malaclemysterrapin.html
Terrapin trapped in a crab pot (but rescued in this case): http://nytts.org/proceedings/wood-ct.jpg
Female terrapin nesting: http://www.thelloydcenter.org/ what-we-do/news/images/terrapin.jpg
Young terrapin: http://www.turtletrack.org/Issues03/Co01252003/Art/BabyTerrapin.jpg
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