Chennai is the highest-ranked node in the tortoise and hard-shell turtle trafficking network fuelling the global pet trade, a new study has found.
Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh, Agra, and two districts of West Bengal — North 24 Parganas and Howrah — close to the India-Bangladesh border also rank high, the study published in the September edition of Oryx, The International Journal of Conservation, said.
The study titled From pets to plates also found that the trafficking of soft-shell turtles for meat was predominantly domestic in nature, with the international trafficking of the reptile from or to India almost restricted to Bangladesh.
