Huangpu Customs in south China's Guangdong Province have seized 50,000 red-slider tortoises from a boat smuggling the reptiles from Hong Kong into the Chinese mainland, the General Administration of Customs said on Friday.

All of the animals were said to have originated from Louisiana, in the United States. It was the first time Chinese customs have seized the tortoises. Red sliders are one of the world's most devastating alien invasive species causing damage to ecosystems, killing native species and ravaging biodiversity.

(China Daily April 30, 2005)