This is the reply I had today
Thank you for your email.
We appreciate you are concerned about the animal welfare issues associated with the sale of turtles in China. So are we. That's why we commissioned independent research, considered the available academic evidence and have been in dialogue with the animal welfare charity, Care for the Wild so that we can make progress on a sound basis.
As a result, we have made several significant improvements to the way turtles are sold in our stores. We are also developing a public awareness campaign to help consumers understand animal welfare and to provide advice on the best treatment of live turtles where customers choose to take them home.
This approach to animal welfare and the sale of live turtles, commissioning research, acting on it and educating customers, is unprecedented by any retailer operating in China and we hope that these actions will help to drive up standards throughout the supply chain.
Some organisations such as Care for the Wild and VIVA are now asking us to stop selling live turtles completely and you may agree with this demand. While we are committed to upholding the very important issue of animal welfare, we also need to balance different cultural attitudes, in this case respecting the different traditions, expectations and values on this issue that exists in China.
Turtles are a popular and traditional part of the Chinese diet and having addressed some important animal welfare concerns, we currently continue to sell live turtles in our stores in China.
Thank you for your interest in this issue.
If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us at
customer.service@tesco.co.uk quoting TES5761112X.
Kind Regards
Lori Milne
Customer Service Manager
Tesco Customer Service