21 January 2008
Corsica hosts Europe's biggest tortoise park, run by one of the several French associations for tortoises called A Cupulatta, meaning tortoise in Corsican.
According to Clicanoo, A Cupulatta and another association based on the French island Reunion have collaborated to set up a National Association for Tortoises, with the slogan: "breed to stop disappearance".
The president of the Reunion association, Emmanuel Lemagnen, explained that their purpose was "to stop the disappearance of tortoises and ban irresponsible behaviour of collectors who treat tortoises like toys".
A Cupulatta is a 2.5-hectare park which was founded in 1993 in Vera, between Ajaccio and Bastia.
It hosts various species of turtles and tortoises from all continents, with around 150 species coexist in the park, amounting to some 3,000 animals.
The park is open to the public every day from March 30th to November 17th.
A smaller park based in Moltifau in north Corsica also aims to protect tortoises, especially the Hermann tortoise thought to have appeared one million years ago.
The species only remains in Corsica and in the Var department of France.
