World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

CHINA,PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OFHistorical trends Previously, turtles were revered by fishermen and werereleased when they were caught accidentally. However their increasingrarity means that virtually every turtle caught is now killed (Frazier andFrazier, 1985).Turtle fishery statistics are available for the Xisha Islands from 1959 to1977 and for Hainan from 1977 to 1985 (Table 41). The early statistics fromthe Xisha Islands relate to the landings at Yong Xing purchasing station(Huang Chu-Chien, 1982). It is not known how these relate to the laterstatistics from thfe Xisha Islands (Wang Xiaoyan in litt. . 20 November 1986)which appear to have been higher in 1970. The fishery in the Xisha Islandsshows no clear trends, but the catches in Hainan seem to have beenincreasing.Table 41. Turtle fishery statistics for the Xisha Islands and Hainan intonnes. The first column relates to the landings at Yong Xing purchasingstation, Xisha Islands (Huang Chu-Chien, 1982). The last two columns weregiven as the fishery statistics for the Xisha Islands and Qionghai County,Hainan (Wang Xiaoyan in litt. . 20 November 1986).Year Xisha Xisha Hainan1959