To achieve their goal, the environmentalists filed a petition with the Department of Environmental Conservation, citing several reasons why the eastern hellbender should be provided protection allocated for other endangered species.

"Hellbenders face numerous threats in New York, including sedimentation, low water quality, lack of habitat, and disease. Significant declines in hellbender populations in both the Allegheny and Susquehanna watersheds suggest that this species, without protection, could become extirpated in the near future in the Susquehanna drainage, and may also disappear from the Allegheny drainage," summarized the petition.

Endemic to New York, the eastern hellbender was given the "special concern species" status by the state's conservation officials back in 1983.

“The turtles were all dead,” an official of the Ministry of Public Security’s environmental police department, Le Hong Thai, said. “They were meant to be processed into handicrafts for export to China,” he added.

“The case is under investigation, so we cannot reveal the number of detainees or any other details,” he said.

Vietnamese law protects five native marine turtles, making it a criminal offense to hunt, trade, or store them.

Faced with growing concerns about the hunting of freshwater turtles in the United States for Asian food markets, federal officials this week proposed adding four species to an international list of plants and animals designed to manage commercial trade in the reptiles.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday said that listing the common snapping turtle, Florida softshell turtle, smooth softshell turtle and spiny softshell turtle would allow it to better monitor exportation of these species, particularly to Asian nations, where turtle populations have been wiped out due to high demand for their meat.

Bringing the species under the protection of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora would require exporters to obtain a permit before shipping turtles overseas. That would help the federal agency determine the extent of legal and illegal exportation and decide whether additional conservation efforts were needed.

You ask, "shouldn't they be equipped with fishing poles and nets instead of intimidating weapons?" If you are after fish, then the answer is yes. However, if your desire is to legally kill a timber rattlesnake, northern copperhead, snapping turtle or any other unlucky native reptile and amphibian then, these uncharacteristic slaying instruments were recommended to me by Thomas Burrell, Waterways Conservation Office Manager of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.

Immediately, several questions come to mind, like:

Are you serious? Can you kill reptiles and amphibians, especially with machetes and clubs in this day and age? Can someone be guilty of cruelty to animals? Isn't the timber rattlesnake protected and is the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's goal to ensure that it stays off of its endangered species list?

During the 90-second-long clip, Jeans downed a glass of water filled with crickets, before putting a frog in the same glass and swallowing it whole.

Jeans, of Cowplain, Hampshire, then gulped down a three-inch long lizard.

He was prosecuted despite claiming that he regurgitated the animals afterwards.

Jeans was ordered to do 80 hours of unpaid work after admitting causing unnecessary suffering to the animals under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

Two students — Samantha Lambarena and Freedom America Payne — traveled to Sacramento in April to sell lawmakers on the idea.

The red-legged frog is the largest native frog in the western United States.

“We think people will protect it just like they protect America’s bald eagle,” Lambarena said during the April hearing.

According to the federal agency, the black pinesnake is found only in Mobile, Washington and Clarke counties in Alabama, and 11 Mississippi counties, including Jackson and George. It has not been seen in Louisiana in more than 30 years.

If deemed threatened under the Endangered Species Act, the government would impose certain restrictions on activities like the use of herbicides, controlled burns and some timber activities in the affected habitat areas.

"The black pinesnake is an important part of the longleaf pine ecosystem in southern Alabama and Mississippi," Fish & Wildlife Southeast Regional Director Cindy Dohner said in a prepared statement. "Conservation efforts for the black pinesnake align closely with efforts already ongoing in this ecosystem for other wildlife like the gopher tortoise, eastern indigo snake, dusky gopher frog and the red-cockaded woodpecker."

She was the second tortoise in a Game and Fish study to have a transmitter affixed to her, which had been providing researchers information about the reclusive reptile's movements since 2010. Fourteen other juvenile tortoises in the program have transmitters.

Anyone with information about this killing can call the department's Operation Game Thief hotline toll-free at (800) 352-0700 or visit www.azgfd.gov/thief and refer to case #14-002388. Callers may be eligible for a reward of up to $1,000.

The two teenage girls responsible for the viral video of them torturing a gopher tortoise have been arrested today. Thanks to your concern and tips, Danielle Susan Dionne, 15, and Jennifer Emoke Greene, 18, have been arrested on charges of felony cruelty to animals, a third-degree felony.

They were also charged with a second-degree misdemeanor: taking, harassing, harming or killing a gopher tortoise.

The FWC worked with the State Attorney’s Office of the Fourth Judicial Circuit to decide the appropriate charges related to the crime. State Attorney Angela Corey said, “We are committed to fully prosecuting those responsible for the torture and death of this vulnerable and threatened species.”

On Sunday, May 11, 521 tortoises – all juveniles - were seized prior to being loaded on a Kenya Aiways flight to Nairobi; the smuggler ran away when his name was called by the information desk and was not apprehended. The shipment included 512 Radiated Tortoises (Astrochelys radiata) and nine Ploughshare Tortoises (Astrochelys yniphora) that were placed with the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) for initial care and safe keeping.

Officers found the reptiles in a case while carrying out customs checks at Terminal 5 on Monday.

Each one was wrapped in an individual sock - 12 survived their journey, one had died.

The iguanas arrived on a flight from the Bahamas taken by two Romanian women aged 24 and 26, who were arrested on suspicion of importation offences.