Sea turtle watching in Malaysia by invitation

Ng Ai Fern The Star 28 Sep 10;

SEA turtles mating for long hours off Talang-Talang islands in the Talang-Satang National Park, one of the primary sites for turtle nesting in Sarawak, is an amazing sight for a privileged few.

“I thought there were turtles approaching the island. I walked to the beach and saw two pairs of turtles mating. It’s the greatest sight in the morning on a beautiful turtle island,” said Teresa Lim, a volunteer diver who stayed a night on the island recently for a reef cleaning project organised by Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC).

Another volunteer diver, Mark Justin, also reported that his group had spotted a pair of mating turtles underwater during their third reef monitoring dive.

As the islands are part of the totally protected area managed by SFC, the only way to see turtles nesting is to be among the invited few or to become one of the few privileged participants of a Turtle Adoption Programme.

Each year between May to September, female turtles will cross several hundred kilometres of ocean to return to the place where they hatched to lay eggs.

Female turtles normally mate with several male turtles near their nesting grounds, which is also where they hatched.

After crawling up the beach and digging a deep hole, they can lay up to 100 eggs. The eggs will hatch after 45 to 70 days.

“I once saw the same turtle coming back seven times to lay eggs in a year. Some of them come four to five times a year. I can tell by the tag on their flippers,” said, Abu Seman, 51, who has been working on the islands for about 12 years.

SFC has recorded a total of 9,980 mother turtles since 1996 and 755 nests at the island annually.

Most of the eggs collected by SFC will be incubated. However, among the hatchlings released, only one out of 1,000 will survive and reach maturity.

About 3mil hatchlings have been released in the past 40 years and only 3,244 mature turtles were produced.

“They grow very slowly in the wild, they usually make a long breeding migration of up to 3,000km from the feeding ground to a nesting beach,” said the park warden Tonny Ganyai.

Sea turtles are very sensitive and may return to the sea without nesting if they are disturbed while stranding or excavating the nest, explained Tonny.

The Turtle Adoption Programme was introduced to protect the turtles.

“There are only 12 slots each year and only six volunteers are allowed in each slot. Most of the participants are foreigners and we are always fully booked a year ahead,” said SFC general manager Wilfred Landong.

To adopt a turtle, a local would have to pay RM600 and a foreigner RM1,200.

Wilfred said SFC had limited tourism on the islands despite demands from the industry.

“Tourists coming, turtles going. This (turtle adoption programme) is the maximum level we can open the island for eco-tourism, not more than that. We do not allow day-trips as it would be too noisy, too many speed boats in the area will definitely drive the turtles away,” he said.

In the adoption programme which was launched in 2007, volunteers can actively participate in turtle conservation efforts from locating turtle landings, monitoring sea turtle nesting activities, tagging and measuring turtles, transferring eggs to hatchery, release hatchlings, data recording and other in-situ conservation activities.

Lim agreed with SFC that she and her group of nine other volunteer divers were privileged to stay overnight on the island and witness the reproduction of sea turtles without having to fight for the limited spots to join the adoption programme.

“The efforts done in turtle conversation is encouraging. The public should learn more about this programme and understand the life span of turtles, so they would know how important it is to stop buying or eating turtle eggs,” Lim said.

The group of volunteer divers also adopted a baby turtle for RM300 and a nest for RM100 to show their support to the conservation programme. The baby turtle was named, 1Malaysia, to commemorate the inaugural reef-cleaning project on the island.