ARRIVAL OF AUTUMN

The long hot Moroccan summer is on its way out, and activity is picking up at our garden home. Our resident tortoise has reappeared, and seemed eager to lunch on an over ripe nectarine. This Moroccan tortoise is Testudo graeca marokkensis, and the species was declared endangered and protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Experts agree that populations of the species have declined considerably in almost all areas since 1970. The tortoise is commonly traded as a pet in source countries such as Morocco and Spain, despite the illegality of this trade. Several years ago authorities in Berlin caught a man trying to smuggle three live tortoises from Morocco into the country.