A radiated tortoise was presented to the Tongan royal family by the British explorer Captain Cook. It lived to the age of at least 188 years old! The animal was called Tui Malila and appears in the photo below taken in 1953 when Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Tongan royal family.

Despite laws completely protecting the species, traffic in tortoises from the south coast of Madagascar to the capital continues. When caught, this tortoise emits high-pitched cries, sometimes for as long as an hour after capture. This loud noise would startle a predator and it would potentially give up.

Available information indicates that the species has disappeared entirely from about 40% of its past range through a combination of habitat loss and exploitation, and that remaining populations have been severely depleted by recent and ongoing exploitation predominantly for domestic consumption; an overall population reduction of 80% over two past and one future generation is a conservative estimate

Domestic utilization of this species is the greater concern. Within Madagascar, the Mahafaly and the Antandroy, whose land covers the range of the Radiated Tortoise do not utilize the tortoise. They have a taboo against eating or touching the tortoises. However, large quantities of Radiated Tortoises are gathered by people from other areas of Madagascar who recently moved into this region, or by Malagasy people who are passing through. It, had been estimated that up to 45,000 adult Radiated Tortoises are harvested each year, information now suggests that the actual number is around 241,000 tortoises collected annually. Tortoise meat is especially popular around Christmas and Easter. Declared protected areas are insufficiently patrolled and resourced to deter large-scale collection right inside these nominal strongholds.