LOS ANGELES - Paul Gibbons gently placed a 30-pound adult female ploughshare tortoise on a small table.

With a steady hand, he carved a code onto its rounded shell. But, the creature with weary eyes and gleaming shell didn't seem to mind and stared calmly into the distance.

The code will identify the tortoise so it can be tracked. But it will be branded for life, which could be about 160 years in the case of this female tortoise.

Tortoises are turtles that live on land, and don't usually swim.

"It's heartbreaking that it's come to this. But it's the right thing to do," Gibbons said. He is the managing director of the Turtle Conservancy's Behler Chelonian Center in California. It is a nonprofit group that protects and breeds endangered turtles.

To The Brink Of Extinction

The booming illegal international wildlife trade has forced conservationists to do the unthinkable. They are branding the golden domes of two of the rarest tortoises on Earth to reduce their value on the black market. The branding makes it easier for authorities to trace them if stolen.

"We've blemished her natural beauty, so she's just a number in a system now," Gibbons said. He carved the 2-inch-high numbers and block letters - 7001 MG - at the top of the turtle's back. The location was chosen to avoid interfering with her expanding shell, which grows at the edges.

The Conservancy's goal is to mark every one of the estimated 360 ploughshares in captive breeding programs around the world. It also seeks to mark the 300 believed to be remaining in the wild.

So far, no rare tortoise or turtle with identification markings has turned up in illegal markets, conservationists said. The markets are monitored by law enforcement officials.

Decades of intense collecting, hunting and destruction of the habitats they live in has brought that species and dozens of others to the brink of extinction. Now, sanctuaries and zoos are using visible identification marks as a tool to fight poaching and discourage wealthy collectors.

Poaching is the illegal capture or killing of wild animals. Poachers go after the turtles because some collectors are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for critically endangered turtles and tortoises.

The shells of two confiscated ploughshare tortoises were engraved at the Singapore Zoo in December. In October, the Turtle Conservancy helped mark the shells of 150 Burmese star tortoises in Myanmar. Marks include shell notches, clipped toenails, paint, laser inscriptions, tattoos and engravings.

Putting The Brakes On Trafficking

Keeping rare turtles and tortoises safe, however, requires a higher level of security.

A week ago, Indonesian officials at an airport in Jakarta rescued more than 8,000 baby pig-nosed turtles. They were hidden in suitcases and believed headed for China and Singapore.

In December, Thai customs officials confiscated a suitcase containing 62 rare radiated tortoises at the Bangkok airport.

In November, authorities in Thailand discovered 432 protected tortoises and 52 black pond turtles worth about $110,000. They were found in unclaimed luggage arriving from Bangladesh.

In March, authorities seized 54 ploughshare tortoises found in the suitcases of two people attempting to enter Thailand.

Golden coin turtles have been selling for thousands of dollars each. The price shot up after poachers began claiming recently that consuming extracts from the species could cure cancer.

The two ploughshare tortoises marked Tuesday were flown in from Taiwan, where they were seized in 2008. The female now known as No. 7001 MG was successfully mated last year with the only male ploughshare tortoise of breeding age outside Madagascar, where they are from.

Five eggs she laid in November are being incubated to keep them warm and help them hatch. They are the first ploughshare tortoise eggs produced in an international conservation program. "We still aren't sure they are fertile," Gibbons said.

In A Secret Compound

As the rarest tortoise on Earth, the ploughshare is highly valued by global animal traffickers. It fetches tens of thousands of dollars on the Asian black market, conservationists say.

The same could be said for most of the cold-blooded animals, or reptiles, at the Conservancy. It is a secret compound of small enclosed areas and aquariums protected by security cameras and electric wire in the Los Padres National Forest in California.

Although certified by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, the Conservancy is not open to the public and its location is kept secret. The only visitors are turtle biologists from around the world.

Its primary mission is to maintain colonies of threatened and endangered tortoises and freshwater turtles. They include two Sulawesi turtles from Indonesia seized at Los Angeles International Airport in February. Other new arrivals include seven Roti Island snake-necked turtles, members of an Indonesian species hunted to near extinction.

Then there is Daphne, a 40-year-old female giant Galapagos tortoise looking for a mate.

Christine Light manages the care of eggs and the records of the Conservancy's turtles. It is her job to pamper the bunches of eggs until they hatch and then the babies until they are old enough to fend for themselves.

"This little fella hatched on Monday," Light said, holding up an Indian spotted turtle about the size of a half dollar coin. "Too cute for words, right?"

She added with a smile, "Last year, we had 294 hatchlings from 13 species. Each one of those hatchlings was a little win for our side."]]>