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 on its rounded shell. The creature with weary eyes and gleaming shell didn't seem to mind and looked 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 helps run the Turtle Conservancy's Behler Chelonian Center in California. A conservancy protects endangered wildlife and the areas they live in.

The booming international trade in illegal wildlife has forced conservationists to do the unthinkable. They are branding two of the rarest tortoises on Earth to reduce their value on the black market, where wildlife is bought and sold against the law. The branding makes it easier for authorities to trace them if stolen.

"No. 7001 MG"

"We've (spoiled) her natural beauty, so she's just a number in a system now," Gibbons said. "No. 7001 MG." He carved the 2-inch-high numbers and letters at the top of the turtle's back. The location of the letters will not interfere with her expanding shell, which grows at the edges.

The Conservancy's goal is to mark all of the estimated 360 ploughshares in protected breeding programs around the world. It also seeks to mark the 300 remaining in the wild.

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

The plowshare turtle and others are close to dying out. This has been caused by years of intense collecting, hunting and destruction of where they live. Now, wildlife refuges and zoos are using identification marks to fight poaching and discourage rich collectors. Poaching is the illegal capture or killing of wild animals.

Collectors will pay tens of thousands of dollars to buy endangered turtles and tortoises.

Two ploughshare tortoises were marked at the Singapore Zoo in December. In October, the Turtle Conservancy helped mark the shells of 150 Burmese star tortoises in Myanmar. The marks include shell notches, clipped toenails, paint and tattoos.

Smuggled In Suitcases

A higher level of security will be needed to keeping rare turtles and tortoises safe, though.

A week ago, Indonesian officials at the 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, officials in Thailand seized a suitcase containing 62 rare radiated tortoises.

In November, Thai officials discovered 432 protected tortoises and 52 black pond turtles. Together, they are worth about $110,000. The turtles and tortoises were found in luggage arriving from Bangladesh.

Golden coin turtles sell for thousands of dollars. Their price shot up when poachers began claiming that eating them cures cancer.

The two ploughshare tortoises marked by the Turtle Conservancy were flown in from Taiwan. 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.

She laid five eggs in November. They are the first ploughshare tortoise eggs produced in an international conservation program. "We still aren't sure they are fertile," Gibbons said.

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

Somewhere In A Forest

The same could be said for most of the cold-blooded animals, or reptiles, at the Conservancy. Its secret center in the Los Padres National Forest is protected by cameras and electronic wire.

Although certified by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, the Conservancy is not open to the public or listed in the phone book. The only visitors are turtle scientists from around the world.

Its primary mission is to maintain threatened and endangered tortoises and freshwater turtles. These include two Sulawesi turtles from Indonesia confiscated at Los Angeles International Airport. Other arrivals include seven Roti Island snake-necked turtles. They belong to an Indonesian species hunted to near extinction. Few of them remain alive.

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

Christine Light works for the Conservancy. It is her job to take care of turtle eggs until they hatch and then care for the babies until they are old enough to fend for themselves.

"This little fella hatched on Monday," Light said. She held up an Indian spotted turtle about the size of a large 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."]]>