Glass Turtle Statue, Animals & Turtles Statues, Tiffany Glass Turtle Statue

Tiffany Glass Turtle Statue

This beautiful Glass Turtle Statue is designed in high quality 3 dimensional hand blown glass, skillfully handcrafted using certain techniques, such as Sandblasting, in which thousands of microscopic glass shards are removed from the surface of the glass to achieve a frosted finish, and Airbrushing, which adds natural color enhancements by a skilled artist thanks to an airbrush that allows him to hand-paint each piece using the highest quality custom paints. Turtles were once a tough group of animals. Sea Turtles survived the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. But the modern descendants of this ancient group are struggling to survive. Turtles are in fact among the most threatened of the major groups of vertebrates in the world, perhaps even more so than birds, mammals, fish or amphibians. Of the 356 species of turtles recognized today, about 61% are either threatened or have become extinct in modern times. For example, when Lonesome George, the last surviving Pinta Giant Tortoise (Chelonoidis Abingdonii), died in June 2012, it was the end of an entire species.

The Yangtze Giant Softshell Turtle (Rafetus Swinhoei) is also teetering on the brink of extinction. With only 4 surviving individuals, 2 in captivity in China and 2 in the wild in Vietnam, of which only 1 individual is known to be a female, researchers are struggling to revive the species. Turtle populations around the world have been decimated by habitat destruction, overexploitation for food, the commercial pet trade, disease, and climate change. And the collapse of turtle populations could have serious ecological consequences, researchers say in a new paper in Bioscience that reviews the global status of turtles and the roles they play in our ecosystems. Turtles contribute to the health of many environments, including desert, wetland, freshwater and marine ecosystems, and declines may lead to negative effects on other species, including humans, that may not be immediately apparent. Tiffany Glass Turtle Statue measures: 4 inches / 10.5 cm x 3.5 inches / 9 cm x 3 inches / 7.5 cm.