National Headlines

Most members of Parliament don’t accurately represent the opinions of the nation when talking about leaving the European Union (EU), Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said Saturday.

Appearing on “CAVUTO Live” with host Neil Cavuto, Farage said that while he wants Brexit “more than anybody,” the right move here would be to leave Boris Johnson’s Brexit and “take back our independence,” claiming Johnson’s deal is more like a new EU treaty that would bind Britain and lead to more negotiations and acrimony.

“I’m pleased that Boris wants Brexit, but this is just not the right way,” he told Cavuto. “But, he’s not the real problem. The real problem, of course, is that we have a country that voted ‘leave’ and still wants to leave; most members of parliament want to remain.”

BREXIT VOTE DERAILED AT LAST MINUTE BY REBEL LAWMAKERS; BORIS JOHNSON PLEDGES NOT TO NEGOTIATE A DELAY

In a major blow to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, U.K. lawmakers voted Saturday to postpone a decision on whether to back his Brexit deal with the European Union, throwing a wrench into government plans to leave the bloc at the end of this month.

At a special session of Parliament intended to ratify the deal, lawmakers voted 322-306 to withhold their approval on the Brexit deal until legislation to implement it has been passed.

The vote aims to ensure that the United Kingdom can’t crash out of the EU without a divorce deal on the scheduled October 31 departure date. However, it means Johnson must ask the EU to delay Britain’s departure since Parliament previously passed a law compelling him to do that if a Brexit divorce deal were not passed by Saturday.

The government still hopes it can pass the needed legislation by the end of the month so the U.K. can leave on time.

“Opinion polling is very, very clear,” said Farage. “If you give people the binary choice ‘do you want to leave with a clean break Brexit or remain in the European Union’ there is a very, very comfortable lead for those who want to leave — bigger than we had in the referendum three years ago.”

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE FOX NEWS APP

“So, the British public are firm on this. Our politicians don’t reflect it,” he stated.

“My message to the prime m inister is rather, Boris, than pushing through a very bad new EU treaty better to play for time, let’s get a new general election and then hopefully we get a parliament that reflects the country and not just the career politicians currently sitting behind me,” he concluded.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., became the latest in a long line of Republican lawmakers to announce their retirement in 2020, saying that he already accomplished what he sought to do as Florida’s representative.

Fox News host Leland Vittert had asked Rooney on Saturday if viewers should consider him one of the Republicans who wouldn’t run for re-election in 2020.

“Yes, you do. I’ve done what I came to do,” he told Vittert on “America’s News HQ.”

He pointed to his efforts in getting money for Everglades projects and getting an offshore drilling ban passed to protect Florida.

“We’ve gotten all the major projects underway,” he said.

He added that he wanted to be a model for term limits.

“People need to realize … this is public service, not public life,” the second-term congressman told Vittert.

The Florida congressman previously served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See under former President George W. Bush.

Rooney told Vittert that he was “really tired” of the intense partisanship in Washington but wasn’t tired of having to answer for President Trump’s conduct.

MULVANEY COMMENTS SEIZED ON BY CRITICS SAYING IT’S PROOF OF UKRAINE QUID PRO QUO

Rooney’s announcement came as he expressed skepticism of President Trump’s July call with Ukraine and sought more information in House Democrats’ official impeachment inquiry surrounding the issue.

Rooney clarified, however, that his retirement won’t change the way he proceeds with impeachment, arguing that politicians should do the right thing at all times.

More from Media

He also pointed to White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney’s comments, which he said was an explicit admission of a quid pro quo with Ukraine. “I think Mulvaney clarified, there is a point there,” he said.

President Trump has maintained the impeachment inquiry was a form of “harassment” and that his call with Ukraine was well within the scope of his legitimate powers as president. Democrats have alleged that the phone call showed troubling evidence of Trump leveraging foreign aid in order to force Ukraine into interfering in the 2020 election.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

When Vittert asked Rooney whether other Republicans felt the same as him, Rooney indicated some did but he mostly felt like an “island.”

“I really felt like I’ve been on an island for some time,” he said, pointing to former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., not passing offshore drilling legislation for Florida. At that point, he turned to former House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for help.

Chad Pergram, Fox News’ Senior Producer for Capitol Hill, said on Thursday that he thought there was about an 80 percent chance that Democrats would proceed with a vote on impeaching President Trump.

“I would put it at 80 percent right now,” Pergram said during Thursday’s “Hemmer Time” podcast.

His comments came just after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., held a press conference in which she pushed back on the idea that she needed to hold an official vote.

President Trump has been pushing Congress to hold a vote, apparently believing Democrats were either disingenuous or setting themselves up for a political catastrophe by pushing impeachment.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE ‘HEMMER TIME’ PODCAST

According to Pergram, Pelosi may have signaled her disposition towards impeachment when she sat with the press and, after discussing policy issues, allowed House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to answer questions related to impeachment.

KEN STARR: MULVANEY WAS ‘PRETTY CLOSE’ TO ADMITTING UKRAINE QUID PRO QUO, MAY BE ‘UNDER OATH’ SOON

“I think that was a very symbolic act by the Speaker. Actions speak louder than words,” Pergram told Fox News host Bill Hemmer.

Pelosi, he speculated, could have been “completely punting to Schiff” or trying to distance herself from the potential political fallout. “Was this a way to kind of say, alright, Adam, ball’s in your court — don’t screw this up and if you do, it’s not on me?” Pergram asked.

More from Media

At the end of September, Pelosi announced an official impeachment inquiry after months of resisting Democratic calls to do so amid the Russia investigation. It wasn’t until details surfaced surrounding Trump’s July call with Ukraine that she announced an inquiry.

Pergram told Hemmer that Democrats wanted another independent counsel like former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who effectively closed his part of the Russia investigation in the summer of 2019.

Pergram noted that prior impeachment proceedings — for former Presidents Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon — involved special prosecutors who provided evidence for committees.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“Here, they’re not taking Robert Mueller’s work. We’re into a different silo of information here — even though those silos may be cousins, Ukraine and Russia,” Pergram said.

“And so, while most of this work is in the Ukraine silo, very little of it dealt with Robert Mueller … if you talk to Adam Schiff, he’ll tell you this, that they are doing the work of the independent counsel because that doesn’t exist in this model right now and they’re saying if Bill Barr, the attorney general, was on the ball, he would have appointed an independent counsel to look into this issue,” he added.

Listen to the full interview on the latest episode of “Hemmer Time” here, and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday promised to “crush the heads” of the Kurds in Syria if they don’t fall back from the border’s safe zone, according to reports.

The threat comes as both Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) claim the other is violating terms of a 120-hour cease-fire brokered by Turkey and the U.S. on Thursday.

Violence continued in northeast Syria despite the five-day peace agreement, a source told Fox News.

Dave Eubank with Free Burma Rangers, a private military company that provides emergency medical assistance, was on the ground near the Syrian border town of Ras al-Ayn trying to help trapped and wounded Kurds.

Eubank told Fox News the fighting hasn’t stopped and movement in the area is severely limited, despite the cease-fire’s intention to “pause” fighting to allow Syrian Kurds time and space to retreat from the area. Thousands of Kurdish civilians live in the so-called buffer zone, a senior military source had told Fox News.

The Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) was “still shooting all through the night,” Eubank said. “So far since [the] cease-fire, no airstrikes here, but artillery and ground attacks.”

Erdogan threatened the Kurds on Saturday during a televised speech, saying they will be slaughtered if they don’t pull back from the 20-mile-wide safe zone along the Turkey-Syria border by Tuesday night.

“We will start where we left off and continue to crush the terrorists’ heads,” Erdogan said.

US JETS DESTROY ANTI-ISIS COALITION BASE IN SYRIA AFTER WITHDRAWAL, OFFICIAL SAYS

Turkey claims it is living up to the terms of the cease-fire agreement and accused the Kurds of  violating it.

The Turkish Defense Ministry said Kurdish forces carried out 14 “provocative” attacks in Ras al-Ayn in 36 hours, according to the BBC.

In a statement, the SDF said there has been “no tangible progress” in solving the issues at the northeast border.

TURKEY-SYRIA CEASE-FIRE: SENIOR US MILITARY SOURCE ‘HIGHLY SKEPTICAL’ OF DEAL

As of Friday, 86 civilians had been killed since Turkey launched its military offensive into Syria on Oct. 9, according to a war monitor, the BBC reported.

Erdogan claimed the move was to “neutralize terror threats” and establish a “safe zone.” After carrying out airstrikes, Turkish ground troops later invaded northeastern Syria.

Nearly all U.S. troops there have been removed and will be redeployed in the region in the coming weeks.

TRUMPS WARNS ERDOGAN IN LETTER: ‘DON’T BE A TOUGH GUY. DON’T BE A FOOL!’

The U.S. had teamed up with the Kurds to fight ISIS in the region. Some analysts and politicians criticized President Trump for removing America forces, saying it was a “green light” for Ankara to invade Syria and fight the Kurds.

Trump said the Turks have been “warring for many years,” and that the U.S. does not need to protect war-torn Syria because it’s “7,000 miles away.”

The president on Friday claimed “thousands and thousands” of lives were being saved in Syria and Turkey due to the cease-fire.

Fox News’ Griff Jenkins and Jennifer Griffin contributed to this report.

Nick Jonas melted hearts with an inspiring message about his wife, Priyanka Chopra, on social media.

The singer, 26, was observing Karva Chauth on Thursday, a Hindu holiday, with Chopra who is Indian. For the holiday, married women fast from sunrise to sunset to encourage the safety and health of their spouses.

NICK JONAS SAYS HE WAS ‘DONE’ WITH MULTIPLE CEREMONIES TO PRIYANKA CHOPRA AFTER LOOKING AT PRICEY BILL

“My wife is Indian. She is Hindu, and she is incredible in every way,” Jonas wrote on Instagram.

“She has taught me so much about her culture and religion. I love and admire her so much, and as you can see we have fun together. Happy Karva Chauth to everyone!” he added.

NICK JONAS JOINS ‘THE VOICE’ AS A COACH FOR SEASON 18, VOWS TO DEFEAT BLAKE SHELTON

Chopra posted a similar photo on her Instagram.

“Karwa chauth at a @jonasbrothers concert. Definitely a first I’ll always remember! @nickjonas #karwachauth,” she wrote.

The couple married last winter in a lavish wedding in India that honored both the bride and groom’s heritages.

“We took beautiful traditions that we both grew up with and personalized them in a way that made sense for us,” the actress told People magazine at the time. “It’s been incredible to find the commonalities between our beliefs and figuring out how to blend them in a respectful and meaningful way.”

PRIYANKA CHOPRA SAYS SHE’S A BAD WIFE TO HUSBAND NICK JONAS BECAUSE OF HER POOR COOKING SKILLS

As for what they’re planning for their one-year anniversary, Chopra insisted she has no idea.

“I don’t know [what we’re going to do for our anniversary],” she admitted to ET earlier this month.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“I asked and I was told, ‘Why do you ask so many questions?’ I was like, ‘OK, you plan it.’ But I was just [wondering] what are we going to do and he was just like, ‘Don’t ask.’ So I said, OK.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is the wrong person to lead House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against President Trump, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove said Saturday.

Appearing on “Fox & Friends: Weekend” with hosts Ed Henry, Jedidiah Bila, and Griff Jenkins, Rove recalled that in both the Nixon impeachment hearings and the Clinton impeachment hearings “not only did the minority have equal rights with the majority when it came to calling witnesses and issuing subpoenas, but they also had immediate access to all the documents and materials.”

DEVIN NUNES: DEMOCRATS’ IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY IS A PARTISAN ‘ADVENTURE’

He added that the president’s lawyer sat in on staff meetings, closed hearings, and depositions and was able to ask questions, suggest witnesses, and state the president’s position.

“None of that is happening in this instance, and our democracy is ill-served by this hyperpartisan effort led by Adam Schiff,” he told the “Friends” hosts.

On Friday all nine Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee penned a scathing letter to Schiff, accusing him and other Democrats of not providing physical copies or uploading digital versions of documents related to the inquiry to the minority staff.

“We are concerned that the Majority is knowingly withholding Committee documents related to your so-called ‘impeachment inquiry’ from the Minority…We see no reason for your withholding of these documents except as a deliberate attempt to hinder the Minority’s participation,” they wrote.

Ranking member of the Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and fellow Republican members cited several documents, including letters from Democrats on the committee, sent to White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and others. The Republicans also cited letters requesting depositions for several key officials.

In addition, a motion to censure Schiff for his “parody” reading of President Trump’s July phone call with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky during a hearing last month has garnered support from 173 co-sponsors.

“This is a serious matter and it ought to be treated seriously, and the way that Adam Schiff is doing it is highly partisan and not conducive to creating a credible record for the American people to look at,” Rove said, noting that while there is a  role for private depositions or private interviews, those conducted in this inquiry are “not fair and honest.”

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE FOX NEWS APP

“The country is in a critical moment. This requires statesmanship. This requires somebody who is going to rise above hyperpartisanship. That person ain’t Adam Schiff,” the Fox News contributor concluded. “And, he is ill-serving our country and ultimately ill-serving his political party by being so partisan and being so fundamentally unfair.”

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report. 

It’s a crime that has shaken one family to its core

A Michigan farming family is in disbelief after they say 22,000 apples, which equates to roughly 7,000 pounds of fruit, were stolen from their orchard farm in Linden between late Sunday night and Wednesday morning.

The apples stripped off 5 acres’ worth of trees are worth an estimated $14,400 and require an entire year to be grown, the family said.

BRIDE SURPRISED WITH CHICKEN-NUGGET BOUQUET AT OHIO WEDDING

“We were predicting about 7,000 pounds of apples to be harvested over the next week period,” Spicer Orchard Harvest Manager, Matthew Spicer, told ABC 12.”Basically, I was pretty upset about it, because it takes a whole year to grow apples and losing something like that, that was our up and coming varieties. Evercrisp is one of our new ones out and was kind of excited to share that with people.”

On Sunday, Oct. 6, the apples on Spicer Farms supplemental orchard – located at U.S. 23 and Clyde Road in Hartland –  were reportedly not quite ripe yet. The owners usually check their crops every four days, so on Oct. 9, they decided to check again, according to ABC 7.

“There was nothing there,” Ryan Spicer, the grandson of Alan Spicer, the farm’s founder discovered.

Ryan says Alan called the Genesee County Sheriff Department shortly after to report the theft.

SISTERS REUNITED AFTER 75 YEARS THANKS TO ONLINE DNA TEST

Matthew says he believes someone harvested the crops in the middle of the night because the neighbors claim they didn’t see anything. The farm reportedly had cameras, but they were pointing away from the crops during the robbery due to it being hunting season, according to WDIV.

“It would have had to be three or four trucks,” Matthew told ABC 7 after the owner reportedly found tire tracks in the grass. “[It would] have to be somebody who would not have to distinguish between ripe and not ripe apples. Because they took them both.”

Ryan added that the job would have most likely required a “crew of nine.”

The Spicer family has run the orchard for over 50 years and they’ve never experienced a robbery like this.

“Think about how much time and effort that farmer puts into his crop, and when he doesn’t have a crop, how many times does that have to happen then he cant do what he does,” Ryan told the outlet.

CLICK FOR THE ALL-NEW FOXBUSINESS.COM

Investigators aren’t sure if the theft is related to the 400 pumpkins stolen from an orchard in St Clair County ‘s Grant Township or 50,000 apples stolen from an Indiana orchard last month.

Attorney General William Barr delivered one of the most exceptional speeches in modern memory at the University of Notre Dame recently. Judging from his detractors, it seems his remarks landed heaviest on those mystified by the idea of religious neutrality.

Barr began his remarks by noting that his office not only defends the free exercise of religion, but also guards against “states misapplying the Establishment Clause in a way that discriminates against people of faith.”

He invoked the words of the Founding Fathers to demonstrate that the authors of the Constitution believed that a moral standard was essential to the success of a self-governed people. Indeed, the Framers feared the loss of a common moral restraint on human will.

AG BARR BLASTS ‘MILITANT SECULARISTS’ IN SPEECH ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Or, as Barr put it: “No society can exist without some means for restraining individual rapacity.”

Abandon a common moral restraint and a formerly self-governed people will turn to either tyranny to forcefully apply such restraints, or licentiousness to unbridle any restraint in pursuit of individualism. Thus Barr laments the modern replacement of the Judeo-Christian moral system with an activated secular creed.

Paul Krugman lambasted Barr in The New York Times for even giving the speech, noting that Barr sounded “remarkably like America’s most unhinged religious zealots” who commit “mass murder because schools teach the theory of evolution.” 

It is “not decay” that plagues our modern society, Barr argued, but “organized destruction.”

“Secularists and their allies among the ‘progressives,’ have marshaled all the force” of the modern era “in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values,” he said.

So much so, Barr observed, that this “secular project has itself become a religion,” with all the zeal and accouterments of religion, “including inquisitions and excommunication.”

Thus Barr laments the modern replacement of the Judeo-Christian moral system with an activated secular creed.

While the conscientiously defiant may not burn at the stake, today’s high commissions for non-discrimination fine them, gag their speech or threaten their professional existence.

Whereas the First Amendment welcomes all forms of speech, encouraging better speech to counter disagreeable speech, “militant secularists today do not have a live-and-let-live spirit,” Barr said.

More from Opinion

Not surprisingly, the speech was too much for progressive defenders of secularism.

Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker bluntly described it as “the worst speech by an Attorney General of the United States in modern history.” Catherine Rampell called it “a tacit endorsement of theocracy” in The Washington Post.

Paul Krugman lambasted Barr in The New York Times for even giving the speech, noting that Barr sounded “remarkably like America’s most unhinged religious zealots” who commit “mass murder because schools teach the theory of evolution.”

Evidently, Krugman believes gangs of anti-evolutionists led by Barr roam the country, chanting the mantra “Guns don’t kill people — Darwin kills people!”

Barr’s critics prefer secularized neutrality, which isn’t neutral at all.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR OPINION NEWSLETTER

Modern activists — who Barr calls “militant secularists” — are hell-bent on demanding the redefinition of the term to one in which neutrality may only be achieved through forced secularity.

Hence, Barr says, “The problem is not that religion is being forced on others. The problem is that irreligion and secular values are being forced on people of faith.”

It is indisputable that Judeo-Christian values played a significant role in the founding of this nation.

From pilgrims fleeing religious oppression in Europe to James Madison’s outrage over Anglican Virginia jailing Baptist ministers, America’s founding era is replete with efforts to preserve space for people of faith to be people of faith independent of the government’s preferred religion. Such historic toleration is what should rightly be called “neutrality.”

Yet in the march to secularized neutrality, government agencies force Aaron and Melissa Klein in Oregon to speak a government-approved message or lose their business, Dr. Eric Walsh in Georgia must shed his religiosity in order to qualify for employment, and Christian schools are denied the use of the public loudspeaker to pray before kickoff.

Critics of Barr’s speech would do well to remember the past administration’s efforts to force celibate nuns to purchase birth control. Forced conformance to the government’s ideological position abandons any mask of neutrality.

Firing someone from their government job for something said as a lay minister is hostility toward religion, not neutral toleration of it. Preventing Cambridge Christian School in Tampa, Fla., from pre-football game prayer censors religious speech in preference to government-imposed silence.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Despite their protestations, militant secularists have convinced themselves that forced secularization is the only path to enlightened neutrality. It is not. The genius of the Constitution — what Barr called a “quantum leap in liberty” — is that it guards against hostility masquerading as neutrality.

If anything, Barr’s speech is a critical call for a return to a time when notions of free speech and religious liberty were embraced by the religious and secular alike in pursuit of freedom.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY JEREMY DYS

A small Ohio town chose a Solomon-like solution to a property dispute by splitting a new storage building into two pieces.

A third of the building was on farmer Brett Galloway’s land, leading to the dispute.

Last week, officials in Ruggles Township in rural Ashland County cut down a portion of the building and put up a fence along the property line that now runs through the missing section, Fox 8 Cleveland reported Friday.

“I think it’s silly and a bit absurd as you can see,” township resident Joyce Richey told the station.

MAN SAYS SOUTH FLORIDA VILLA HE BOUGHT AT GOVERNMENT AUCTION TURNED OUT TO BE A FOOT-WIDE PIECE OF LAND

The building was put up to store construction equipment.

Ruggles officials offered Galloway money to resolve the matter, which he rejected, the station reported.

“That was their offer, just buy the property, not address my damages,” Galloway told the station. “Their offer was half of what my damages were.”

Trustees referred Fox 8 to the county prosecutor.

He said the township wanted to demolish the building but couldn’t knock down the portion on Galloway’s land because he denied crews access.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“I don’t know who would think this is a good idea,” Galloway told the station. “I can’t use my property and they lost a building.”

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has charged two suspects for poaching thousands of native turtles in Florida in what the agency says is the largest seizure of turtles in recent history.

“The illegal trade of turtles is having a global impact on many turtle species and our ecosystems. We commend our law enforcement’s work to address the crisis of illegal wildlife trafficking,” FWC Executive Director Eric Sutton said.

The two suspects were found in possession of hundreds of turtles that had a black market value of $200,000. Over 4,000 turtles were taken illegally and sold over a 6-month period, according to the agency. The sellers reportedly received cash and even traded turtles for Marijuana products on occasion.

MASSIVE ELEPHANT FOUND DEAD ON TOP OF SQUISHED CROCODILE

Michael Boesenberg, 39, was charged with dealing in stolen property as an organizer, 9 counts of standard caging requirements for captured wildlife, 3 counts of taking over the bag limit of turtles, being over the possession limit of turtles, sale and offering turtles taken in the wild, possession of marine turtle parts, possession of black bear parts, possession of marijuana, possession and intent to sell drugs, and possession of a controlled substance, according to the FWC.

Michael Clemons, 23, was charged with two counts of taking over the bag limit of turtles, being over the possession limit of box turtles, selling and offering for sale turtles taken from the wild, and transporting wild-caught turtles without a permit, the agency reported.

The FWC says they launched a sting operation after receiving a tip in February 2018. As a result of a search warrant on Aug. 12, they determined that a “well-organized” ring of wildlife traffickers were illegally catching and selling wild turtles to large reptile dealers and illegal distributors who shipped a large majority of them overseas on the black market.

“Putting a stop to this criminal enterprise is a significant win for conservation,” said Col. Curtis Brown, head of FWC’s Division of Law Enforcement. “Arresting people engaged in illegal wildlife trafficking supports our environment and legal businesses. It is especially positive and rewarding to be able to release many of the turtles back into the wild.”

“We know that the global black market in live animals includes traffickers smuggling protected species of turtles out of the United States, usually for export to the Asian pet market,” Dr. Craig Stanford, Chairman of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group told the FWC. “This sinister and illegal trade threatens the future of many species of North American animals, and as one of the most threatened animal groups on the planet, turtles are at the forefront of our concern.”

BOA CONSTRICTOR ‘AT LARGE’ IN AUSTRALIAN TOWN, ‘FRESHLY SHED’ SKIN DISCOVERED

The pair reportedly targeted habitats known for the specific species, eventually depleting the turtle populations so much that they had to expand to other areas of the state to meet their growing demand.

“Wild turtle populations cannot sustain the level of harvest that took place here,” said Dr. Brooke Talley, the Reptile and Amphibian Conservation Coordinator for the FWC. “This will likely have consequences for the entire ecosystem and is a detriment for our citizens and future generations.”

The species taken included: Florida box turtles, Eastern box turtles, striped mud turtles, Florida mud turtles, chicken turtles, Florida softshell turtles, Gulf Coast spiny softshell turtles, spotted turtles and diamondback terrapins.

Investigators also found the pair to be in possession of the skull and shell of a protected Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, the rarest species of sea turtle that’s also on the critically endangered list.

CLICK FOR THE ALL-NEW FOXBUSINESS.COM

The seized turtles were given a health evaluation and had their species identified by biologists at the FWC. The agency says over 600 turtles were returned to the wild and two dozen were quarantined and released at a later date. The illegal commercialization of wildlife ranks fourth behind guns, drugs and human smuggling, according to the agency.