Even dead fish. Even stinky fish. A live Hoan Kiem turtle has never been captured, and the Vietnamese government has issued a decree banning any attempt to catch one. An impassioned letter from Duc to former Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet halted an attempt to dredge the lake in 1993. Earlier that year, three scuba divers spent four hours underwater, scouting for turtles.
People here believe the turtle is sacred.
They think only crazy people would want to catch one. Duc and Pritchard, however, believe the huge turtles could be an entirely new freshwater species, one never before documented or studied. Their theory relies on their analysis of a few photographs that show the shape of the turtle's head and shell. There is only one known photo of the turtle entirely out of the water, and the scientists point to it as the best evidence that the Hoan Kiem turtles are built quite differently from their supposed next of kin, Pelochelys bibroni and Rafetus swinhoei. While a big Pelochelys or Rafetus can weigh in at 220 pounds, Duc figures the Hoan Kiem turtles weigh 400 pounds or more.