From the 15th to 20th of March 2019, we were pleased to welcome and work with Forrest Galante, the host of Animal Planet’s “Extinct or Alive”, program. The wildlife biologist, and outdoor adventurer and his film crew work at Dong Mo Lake, Hoan Kiem Lake and other lakes to investigate the story of the world rarest turtle species, Swinhoe’s Softshell Turtle (Rafetus swinhoei), in Vietnam and the work being done by the Asian Turtle Program (ATP) of Indo Myanmar Conservation (IMC) and our partners.
This one hour long special episode for “Extinct or Alive” is scheduled to be aired on the famous Animal Planet Channel this summer in the US and we hope it highlights this incredible species, we are confident it will successfully convey the story of the species and the hope we have for its conservation. The ATP/IMC strongly believes we have other locations where more animals survive and we need more people on the ground involved in the search.
An Alliance for Rafetus Conservation has now been formed with the ATP/IMC, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA), Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC) and Centre Resources and Environmental Studies (CRES). Together we believe the species can be saved.
If you would like to support our conservation efforts for the species please visit. https://asianturtleprogram.org/donate
Press release by: Hoang Van Ha – ATP/IMC
Date: 12th April 2019
Hello! In the show he caught a small turtle at Dong Mo Lake, which he believes is the Yangtze River Softshell turtle. Did the DNA result came back positive?
No, the animal he caught was a Chinese Softshell Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis).