DEP Halts Commercial Harvest Season For Diamondback Terrapin Season

by Patricia A. Miller

The commercial harvest season for northern diamondback terrapins is over for 2016.

State Department of Environmental Protection Acting Commissioner Bob Martin signed an administrative order this week immediately closing the harvest season, due to harvest pressures and increased demand for the turtles in Asian foreign markets.

“We need to ensure the terrapin remains part of our coastal ecosystem,” Martin said.

Diamondback terrapins are the only turtle species that live in the brackish waters of the state’s coastal marshes and estuaries. The closure will remain in effect for the rest of the season, which ends on March 31

This isn’t the first year Martin closed the harvest season early. He signed another order in 2015, at the recommendation of the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council and the Endangered and Nongame Species Advisory Committee.

More than 3,500 terrapins were harvested from two locations in southern New Jersey in 2014 to provide terrapins for an out-of-state aquaculture facility that raises them for overseas markets. More than 14,000 offspring of the wild adult terrapins were then exported to Asia, according to a DEP release

State Division of Fish and Wildlife conservation officers will be looking for anyone illegally harvesting terrapins. Anyone charged with illegally harvesting a diamondback terrapin will be fined a $200 replacement fee for each turtle harvested, in addition to civil penalties, according to the release.

“As evidenced by our recommendation to DEP, the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council fully supports the extended closure of the diamondback terrapin harvest as we continue to establish future regulations,” said Council Acting Chairman Dick Herb.

Although the diamondback terrapin is not a threatened or endangered species in New Jersey, the number of turtles has been decreasing since the 1930s. The turtles are also at risk due to habitat loss, drowning in crab traps and vehicle strikes.

They are an important part of the ecosystem and feed on snails that can overgraze marsh grasses, leaving them as barren mudflats, according to the release.

For a copy of the Administrative Order, visit: www.nj.gov/dep/docs/ao2016-02.pdf

For more information on diamondback terrapins, including a range map, visit: http://www.conservewildlifenj.org/species/fieldguide/view/Malaclemys%20terrapin%20terrapin/

Photo credit: New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.