The humble house in the rural village of Simón Sarlat in the tropical Mexican state of Tabasco has a sign hanging outside offering fish for sale. Inside, the front room is dark, the walls robin egg blue and dirty. In the corner sits a large freezer, full of frozen fish, but there are other goods available if the right questions are asked.
After a query about turtles and crocodiles, a short, stocky fisherman with stubby, hard hands and weathered skin disappears into a side room. He emerges carrying a small plastic washbowl containing six live turtles of varying shapes and sizes. He offers all of them for 280 pesos - around 15 dollars.
The largest turtle is of the jicotea species. The rest are pochitoques. Both are some of the region’s most trafficked. All are now officially protected species but Chico, the hunter, caught them in the wild.
