MEXICO CITY— The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the Mexican government today to list the rare Cora mud turtle as endangered and establish protections covering all native mud turtles in the genus Kinosternon.

The petition seeks protections under NOM-059, Mexico’s national regulation for identifying and preserving species at risk. These small freshwater turtles face mounting threats from habitat destruction and trafficking for the international pet trade.

“These little turtles are being stolen for the pet trade while the wetlands they depend on are destroyed, drained and polluted,” said Alejandro Olivera, a senior scientist and Mexico representative at the Center. “Mexico needs to act quickly to keep these remarkable animals in the wild. Losing species found nowhere else on Earth would be an irreversible tragedy.”

The Cora mud turtle (Kinosternon cora), which was only identified by scientists in 2020, lives exclusively along Mexico’s Pacific coastal plain in Sinaloa and Nayarit. Its shallow wetlands are threatened by water withdrawals for agriculture and contamination from agricultural chemicals. Researchers found just 47 live Cora mud turtles at only 15 of 45 surveyed locations during 3,200 hours of sampling between 2017 and 2023.

In February 2025 Mexican authorities intercepted 10 Cora mud turtles at Mexico City’s international airport in a shipment destined for Japan. Later that year authorities seized 2,339 freshwater turtles of several species, including Cora mud turtles, during operations in the Guadalajara metropolitan area.

In addition to the seizures in Mexico, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officers have intercepted shipments containing Mexican mud turtles. A seizure at Los Angeles International Airport in December 2025 included approximately 20 Vallarta mud turtles bound for Asia.

Vallarta mud turtles sell for up to $30,000 each in China, providing a major financial incentive that drives illegal trade. Experts believe wildlife authorities only seize a small portion of illegal traded wildlife.

A 2023 assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature classified the Cora mud turtles as endangered, citing their fragmented populations, deteriorating habitat and illegal collection. Despite that assessment and existing international trade restrictions, the turtle is not on Mexico’s national list of species at risk.

“We’re still discovering extraordinary new turtle species within Mexico, yet some are already being pushed toward extinction by the time we give them a name,” said Olivera. “Scientific discoveries and threats are outpacing the government’s turtle’s pace in updating the protection list. We can’t let these animals disappear while their protections are stuck in bureaucratic limbo.”

NOM-059 is Mexico’s national regulation for identifying species at risk and assigning them protection categories. Its species list has been updated only twice since 2002, in 2010 and 2019. Mexico’s environment ministry began another update process in 2021 and opened a draft revised standard for public comment in April 2025. More than a year later, that revision remains unfinished, leaving an opportunity — and an urgent need — to protect newly discovered species before their populations decline further.

Mexico is home to 18 recognized Kinosternon species, eight of which occur nowhere else. Many look so similar that identifying them can be difficult, especially when juveniles or several species are mixed together in trafficked shipments. Newly discovered species can also remain unlisted and without protections for years.

The petition asks Mexico’s environment ministry, SEMARNAT, to amend NOM-059 to allow protection of the Cora mud turtle and the species’ broader genera, so native Kinosternon species that are not individually listed still receive “special protection.” That coverage would extend to species discovered or reclassified in the future, while preserving stronger protections already assigned to individual species. The Cora mud turtle would also receive its own endangered listing.

Mexico helped secure international trade protections for the entire Kinosternon genus under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in 2022. National listings would complement those safeguards by recognizing extinction risks within Mexico, supporting conservation measures and giving enforcement authorities clearer rules for protecting native mud turtles.