"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with state, nonprofit and academic partners to get poached native turtles back home. It can be a years-long process that relies on informed emergency response, sound long-term care and careful consideration of the risk to local populations...

...While no one wants to harm a wild turtle population, long-term housing is limited, and pre-release screening is expensive and time-consuming. When might it make sense to forego testing?  

As graduate students and Pathways interns for the Service, Desireé Smith and Ednita Tavarez-Jimenez pursued that question. They helped Evan Grant, research wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Eastern Ecological Science Center, create a model to forecast and quantify the risk of harm to a wild population from releasing a turtle without disease and genetic testing. Results should be available in 2025.

'When is it most valuable to conduct disease and genetic testing?' Grant said. 'The model will provide the science to support using resources most efficiently to conserve wild native turtle populations'..."