It took nearly 15 years since its description to find this species in the wild....

... our Team, partnered by the Asian Turtle Program, where the first and only western scientists to have found this species in the wild, shortly after its discovery.

This gave us important insights into its natural behaviour to improve our captive conditions

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Cuora picturata - what do we do?

Reading the news that a vietnamese Team of scientists finally found this species in the wild after nearly 15 years since its description thrilled us to fly to Vietnam and learn more about its wild habits. In 2012 we visited the area in the province of Phu Yen and surveyed it for a week. We were lucky that our hunting dogs were able to find it with us.

The species is threatened by habitat destruction and hunting to fulfill the chinese demand. It was uplisted to CITES I recently, but this will help little in protecting this species from extinction. As such captive assurance colonies are important and this trip gave us the data we needed to improve our keeping conditions, resulting in successful reproduction of this species in our facility.

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