Our Say:

Our Say:
Time for state to get serious about its terrapins

By THE CAPITAL EDITORIAL BOARD

In all but the most crucial way, this state acts as if the diamondback terrapin were important to it. Malaclemys terrapin — the country’s only species of turtle that can thrive in the brackish waters of the Chesapeake — has been Maryland’s state reptile for 13 years. It has been the mascot of the University of Maryland for more than 70 years.

But even as other states ban harvesting of terrapins, Maryland continues to allow it. And it does so even though no one can really tell you the extent of the terrapin population, or how badly the turtles are threatened by overharvesting or the development of the sandy beaches on which they lay their eggs.

Moreover, the Department of Natural Resources’ latest attempt at regulation, which was supposed to limit the terrapin harvest, seems to have backfired and drastically increased it instead.

Rather than letting the DNR continue to tinker, state lawmakers ought to pass a bill now before them that would stop the terrapin harvest. They can always reconsider the ban later, once there is solid information on the turtles’ population.

This is really six years overdue. A task force that examined terrapin issues in 2001 recommended a temporary harvest moratorium so the species could be studied more thoroughly.

The moratorium and the studies didn’t happen. Instead, in 2003, the DNR axed its small terrapin research department, costing its resident terrapin expert, Marguerite Whilden of Annapolis, her job. She went on to found the Terrapin Institute, a nonprofit group in Shady Side.

Last year, Del. Virginia Clagett, who was on the 2001 task force, filed a bill that initially called for a moratorium on the terrapin harvest, but was whittled back. The DNR responded with a new set of regulations that cut the harvesting season by two-thirds and changed the allowable size of the terrapins taken. Ms. Whilden warned that the rules were “poorly thought out.”

Her former colleagues at the DNR should have listened to her. With watermen scooping up young males, the reported harvest went from 760 pounds in 2005 to at least 17,470 pounds last season.

Maybe the statistics reflect better reporting rather than a gigantic increase. Who knows? In the absence of solid information on the terrapin population, it’s impossible to say.

We’re tired of watching the state stumble around in the dark. The terrapin population nearly collapsed from overfishing around the turn of the century, thanks to an American fondness for turtle soup. It could happen again, as Asian countries, which still have similar tastes and have fished their native turtles virtually to extinction, are looking this way.

A relative handful of watermen rely on terrapin harvesting, and their interest is outweighed by the interest the rest of us have in keeping our state reptile from literally winding up in the soup. It’s time for a ban on harvesting, at least until some real research can be done.