Cleveland Metroparks Zoo today announced the discovery of a
critically endangered turtle in northern Vietnam that previously
was thought to be extinct in the wild. Experts from the Zoo's
Asian Turtle Program confirmed that they have identified the
only known living specimen of a Swinhoe's soft-shell turtle
(Rafetus swinhoei) in nature. After three years of searching
lakes and wetlands along the Red River in northern Vietnam,
researchers sponsored by Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and the
Cleveland Zoological Society turned their focus to a lake just
west of Hanoi, where local residents claimed to have
occasionally seen the gigantic soft-shell turtle. Field
biologist Nguyen Xuan Thuan, with Education for Nature in
Vietnam, found and photographed the turtle as it basked on the
lake's surface, allowing scientists to confirm the animal was
the extremely rare Swinhoe's turtle. "This is an incredibly
important discovery because the Swinhoe's turtle is one of the
most critically endangered species of turtle in the world,"