Indian Star Tortoise

🔹 About:

1. They are found across the Indian sub-continent, more specifically, in the Central and Southern parts of India, in West Pakistan and in Sri Lanka.

2. Recently, Indian star tortoises were seized while being smuggled from Andhra Pradesh to Odisha.

🔹 Conservation Status

1. IUCN Status: Vulnerable

2. Convention on International Trade inSpecies (CITES): Appendix I

3. Wild Life Protection Act 1972: Schedule IV

🔹 Threats

1. loss of habitat to agriculture

2. illegal harvesting

3. illegal trade

🔹 Conservation Efforts

1. Recently India’s proposal to upgrade the protection status of Star Tortoise from Appendix II to Appendix I was approved by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

● Indian star tortoise (Geochelone Elegans) is a species of tortoise found in dry areas and scrub forests of India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. It is accustomed to monsoon seasons.

● It is the single most confiscated species of freshwater tortoise in the world.

● IUCN Status: Vulnerable 

● Wild Life Protection Act 1972: Schedule IV 

● CITES: Appendix I