{"id":274004,"date":"2026-05-17T04:28:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T04:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/274004\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T04:28:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T04:28:27","slug":"nearly-2000-turtles-poached-from-florida-wildlife-trafficked-overseas-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/274004\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly 2,000 turtles poached from Florida wildlife, trafficked overseas, officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Brief<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Nearly 2,000 Florida turtles were taken from their habitat before being shipped overseas, according to officials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Officials believe the turtles were transported to San Francisco before being shipped to Taiwan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Florida &#8211; Officials with the US Fish and Wildlife Service are investigating after they said an operation exposed a trafficking case where nearly 2,000 Florida turtles were illegally shipped overseas.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The investigation, dubbed Operation Souther Hot Herps, spanned from early 2022 to late 2023 where officials said 1,700 loggerhead musk turtles, 100 striped-neck musk turtles and 15 striped mud turtles were taken from their habitat and sold overseas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Officials believe the turtles were collected and transported to San Francisco and later Taiwan under false export permits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Loggerhead musk turtles, stripe-neck musk turtles and striped mud turtles are all protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"&lt;div&gt;(U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo)&lt;\/div&gt;\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/35ec451c12e758a3c1df59778840e2c3.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>(U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo)<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The suspect in connection with the incident remains under investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brief Nearly 2,000 Florida turtles were taken from their habitat before being shipped overseas, according to officials.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72232,28,30,29,117003,5954],"class_list":["post-274004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-fish-and-wildlife-service","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-musk-turtles","tag-officials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}