approaching
Greg Barrow in Zanzibar
FOR more than 200 years, giant Aldabra tortoises have thrived on Prison Island, a small coral atoll just off the coast of Zanzibar that was once used as a detention centre for disobedient slaves.
When explorer David Livingstone established his expedition headquarters in Zanzibar in 1866, he may well have dined on the fleshy meat of the reptiles that were brought to Prison Island by sailors arriving in East Africa from the Seychelles.
Tortoise meat may no longer be on the menus of tourist restaurants in Zanzibar’s ancient stone town, but the reptiles are facing extinction because they are prized by owners of exotic pets.
Illegal traders, who have been paying Zanzibaris to steal the tortoises from Prison Island, sell them in the Middle East and the United States.
“It won’t be long before there are no breeding tortoises left on Prison Island, and in a number of years there’ll be no tortoises at all,” says Mike Pugh of the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA). “The Zanzibaris will have lost a creature that is an asset to them.”
Just four years ago, there were 50 adult Aldabra tortoises on Prison Island. Some weighed more than 150kg and were estimated to be more than a century old.
Today, only nine remain. They still breed, but their young are often stolen just weeks after hatching. More than 100 baby tortoises recently disappeared from an open enclosure, amid allegations that local officials were involved in their illegal export to the United Arab Emirates.
The tortoises can fetch up to the equivalent of more than R1 000 each, if sold to illegal traders – more than the average Zanzibari earns in a year. But the real profit is made by the traders who sell the tortoises on for thousands of rands.
The WSPA has launched a campaign to raise awareness among Zanzibaris about the threat of extinction.
Meredith Kennedy, an American veterinary surgeon who is helping the campaign, says: “A lot of people here are living on the edge. It’s a subsistence economy and most people have to worry about getting their children fed. We want to highlight what’s going on, but we won’t ever be able to make saving tortoises the priority of everyone.”
Around 80 young tortoises have now been moved to more secure surroundings behind Livingstone House, the headquarters of the Zanzibar Tourist Corporation. All have been numbered, and it is hoped that microchips will be inserted under their skin so that they could be traced quickly if stolen.