About 150 baby turtles were hatched last year at Singapore's first and only hatchery for these marine creatures, the National Parks Board (NParks) said on Wednesday (Aug 21), nearly a year since its official launch in September 2018. Junn Loh reports.
Junn Loh Channel NewsAsia 21 Aug 19;
SINGAPORE: About 150 baby turtles were hatched last year at Singapore's first and only hatchery for these marine creatures, the National Parks Board (NParks) said on Wednesday (Aug 21), nearly a year since its official launch in September 2018.
The turtle hatchery at Sisters’ Islands Marine Park was built as part of efforts to provide a safe space for incubating eggs, which faces threats caused by human traffic, light pollution and predators such as monitor lizards.
Singapore is home to two species of turtles: the hawksbill turtle and the green turtle, both of which are critically endangered.
The turtles visit various shores around Singapore to lay eggs during the nesting season from May to October. Each nest contains between 100 and 200 eggs.
When CNA visited a hawksbill turtle nest along East Coast Beach on Wednesday morning, a clutch of 152 eggs were recorded.
Of those, 98 eggs were relocated to NParks's hatchery on Small Sister's Island. The rest of the eggs were not relocated as they had not developed.
NParks said the decision to move the eggs was due to its close proximity to a construction site, which is brightly lit at night. Volunteers patrolling the shores have also reported sightings of hatchlings near the area.
Baby turtles instinctively move toward the sea, guided by lights from the horizon when they hatch. Light sources from urban environment could confuse the hatchlings, which may attract them to crawl inland instead of out into the waters.
In contrast, the hatchery at the protected Small Sisters’ Island is off-limits to the public and free from excessive light pollution.
The rescued eggs will be left to incubate and monitored within cages on the island until the baby turtles emerge. They will also be protected against predators such as monitor lizards, increasing hatching success.
Members of the public have been roped in to help with the cause. Volunteers from a team called the Biodiversity Beach Patrol are trained on how to protect nesting turtles, and how to spot turtle tracks on the shores, for example.
"We spend the entire night as a group combing the different areas that we're allocated to,” said volunteer Bernard Seah.
The group typically splits into teams of two or three, working in alternating six-hour shifts during nesting season.
“If we see turtle tracks, we just report it. But if we see turtle activities, we see a female turtle nesting, or we see hatchlings, we call NParks straight away, and we will activate them to come down to the site to take over,” Mr Seah said.
There were 62 reported turtle sightings and 10 successful nests of hatchlings recorded across Singapore in 2018.
But even as conservation efforts to protect native rare sea turtles bear fruit, Senior Manager of the NParks Coastal and Marine Team Collin Tong said threats caused by marine pollution and human activities remain even after the turtles find their way into the sea.
“Things like plastic bags, especially the translucent ones. They look like jelly fishes to the turtles.” Mr Tong said.
"So it will be good if people try to be more aware. Make sure things don’t fly into the sea, and don’t intentionally drop things into the waters. That will help conserve the marine habitats which all these critically endangered turtles live in,” he added.
Source: CNA/nh(aj)
Moving turtle eggs a labour of love as hundreds of volunteers help find nests in Singapore
WONG PEI TING Today Online 21 Aug 19;
SINGAPORE — Two trails across the sand, half-dug holes and a pile of loose sand.
They may not look like much to a casual observer, but to the trained eye, they are all tell-tale signs that the critically endangered Hawksbill turtle or endangered Green sea turtle has freshly nested.
As many as 200 volunteers with the National Parks Board (NParks) have been busy trying to spot signs of these creatures since nesting season started in June.
And partly because so many volunteers are now patrolling Singapore’s coast into the wee hours of the night, recorded turtle activity has seen an encouraging uptick. Some of these volunteers have even been camping overnight on the Southern Islands that are accessible only by boat.
From 2005 to 2016, only 66 turtle sightings were recorded in Singapore. Although not a directly comparable figure, last year alone, there were 62 nest-related sightings.
This suggests that more turtles than previously thought — Hawksbills in greater numbers than Green sea turtles — treat Singapore’s shores as safe havens.
Historically, turtles have been slaughtered for their meat, skin and shells. More recently, the busy waters that serve as their habitat have been made perilous through large-scale fishing equipment and potentially lethal plastic waste.
Sightings of the creatures in Singapore also bring opportunities to witness baby turtles emerging from their shells during nesting season.
Last year, conservationists from NParks were able to monitor births from nine clutches of eggs — all of them turned out to be Hawksbill eggs — and to help orientate the hatchlings back into the sea.
As mother turtles sometimes nest on parts of Singapore’s coastline which see significant human traffic, three of these nine clutches had to be dug out of their chambers and shifted to Sisters’ Islands to increase the hatchlings’ chances of survival. Typically, each clutch has more than 100 eggs.
The smaller of the two Sisters’ Islands — out of bounds to the general public — is where Singapore’s first turtle hatchery is located. It was launched in September last year within the wider Sisters’ Islands Marine Park.
These figures were given by the authorities as TODAY tagged along on the second of this year’s relocation efforts on Wednesday (Aug 21). The event saw close to 100 eggs being dug up and transplanted from East Coast Park onto Sisters’ Islands.
Estimated to be 51 days old, the eggs are due to hatch this Sunday. Turtle eggs usually hatch on the 55th to 60th day.
This particular clutch was discovered by a student researcher from the National University of Singapore who volunteers with NParks, and the agency made the call to move it because it was located near a construction site. Over the last two months, volunteers had found hatchlings getting lost there.
Mr Collin Tong Hor Yee, senior manager of the coastal and marine branch at NParks’ National Biodiversity Centre, said that the newborn turtles could have been disoriented by the bright lights from the site’s equipment at night.
Baby turtles rely on moonlight reflected off the ocean’s surface to find their way into the sea.
HOW THE EGG SHIFTING IS DONE
Relocation is tedious, exacting work where one false move can destroy the life within an egg. Work for the crew started at 7.30am and ended after noon.
Mr Tong and his team first removed a metal netting that had been placed on top of the nest to protect the eggs from predators such as monitor lizards, ghost crabs or monkeys since the “smell of (the mother turtle’s) mucus” would be strong in the first few days.
The mesh cannot be magnetic, Mr Tong pointed out, because the turtles take cues from the earth’s magnetic field to navigate themselves as they enter the water. It is "like a compass" so that they recognise how to return to their birthplace to mate and lay their own eggs.
The Hawksbill turtle’s egg chamber that was excavated on Wednesday was 42cm deep, but Mr Tong’s team could not use tools to dig in case they accidentally hurt the eggs.
Using their bare hands, they scooped out the dry grainy sand little by little to uncover the clutch, which held 152 eggs, of which 44 appeared to have already hatched and 10 appeared deflated or under-developed.
Six eggs were suspected to be unhealthy, possibly fungal-infected, and were placed in a pail lined with damp sand. The rest of the 92 “good” eggs were put in another pail.
Mr Tong explained that when the eggs are lifted from the chamber to be placed in the pail, they cannot be rotated because that can kill the embryos, which are attached to the top of the shells. When they are moved, they must be placed on the same side as when they were found in the nest.
His team delayed the transplanting effort because the eggs are best left alone for the first three weeks after they were laid.
Over at the hatchery on Sisters’ Islands, Mr Tong’s team created a 42cm-deep hole similar to the chamber that the mother turtle had dug, and started gently placing the eggs back into the sand — again observing the same crucial rule of not rotating the eggs.
The hole was dug within one of the hatchery’s three purpose-built metal cages by the beach to protect the hatchlings and eggs from predators, such as monkeys living on the island.
A temperature logger is used to ensure the eggs are kept in a 29°C environment, which is ideal to ensure a mix of male and female hatchlings. Too cold, and all the hatchlings will turn out male. Too hot, and all of them will be female, research found.
As the hatchery is not manned round the clock, a motion sensor is attached to the cage to detect any activity and will alert someone once hatchlings emerge, so that the turtles can be returned to the ocean.
Apart from the newly relocated batch of eggs, the remote Sisters’ Islands are home to two other clutches of identified nests which are being monitored, with the eggs left where they were laid. The eggs are due to hatch on Sept 4 and 18.
A TURTLE’S FAILED ATTEMPT
Just as the relocation work was about to be completed on Wednesday, an excited Dr Karenne Tun, NParks’ director of the coastal and marine branch, hurried over, exclaiming that fresh tracks were spotted on an adjacent beach.
It was 11am, and Dr Tun said: “The turtle just left two hours ago. The fellow spent six hours on land instead of two hours.”
She and other NParks personnel gauged the turtle's time spent onshore based on the tide and tracks that are still visible on the sand. Another indicator was that the points of entry and exit were far apart.
She held high hopes that the turtle had laid some eggs, noting that she had seen tracks like this only twice over the last three years when her department had ramped up work on turtle conservation. “She spent a long time on land, so hopefully there is a nest.”
But on closer inspection, it appeared that the turtle had walked a long way inland, dug two holes along the way and made more uncommitted attempts, before waddling back into the sea disappointed. The team could not find any deposit of eggs despite running their fingers through the loosened sand.
How do they know? It was clear that there was a “disturbance” in the area, Dr Tun remarked, tracing the turtle’s path by its tracks on the sand, and loose sand where its flippers had ruffled. The turtle possibly deemed the two holes it dug unsuitable: One had big roots which may have grown into the eggs, and it couldn’t dig deeper with the other.
“She (the turtle) might try again tomorrow,” Dr Tun said, still hopeful. Nesting season does not end until the start of October.
NParks moves 152 critically endangered sea turtle eggs from East Coast beach to hatchery
Audrey Tan Straits Times 21 Aug 19;
SINGAPORE - As dawn broke over a stretch of beach along East Coast Park on Wednesday morning (Aug 21), a group of people were huddled over a hole in the ground.
Slowly, carefully, they extracted what looked like ping pong balls from the sand, placing them in a bucket filled with moist sand.
But they were no sportsmen on a treasure hunt. They were staff and volunteers with the National Parks Board (NParks), on a mission to rescue a clutch of 152 eggs laid by a hawksbill turtle, a species of sea turtle that is critically endangered around the world.
After the eggs were retrieved, they were moved to the turtle hatchery on Sisters' Islands Marine Park, where they are likely to hatch within the next few days, according to estimates by NParks researchers.
Removing the eggs was a laborious process, taking the NParks staff and volunteers about an hour to complete the task.
The removal had to be done by hand and without any tools, as rescuers were afraid the use of equipment could damage the eggs.
Scientists also took care not to change the rotation of the eggs, placing them in moist sand so they would not move around.
At the Sisters' Islands hatchery, the eggs were reburied 42cm deep in sand - the same depth they were found at in East Coast Park.
Other than installing motion sensors and temperature gauges around the eggs, a large cage was also placed around them to keep away predators such as long-tailed macaques and monitor lizards.
The nest had been spotted about 50 days ago by a National University of Singapore student researcher who then informed NParks.
After NParks verified the sighting as a nest, a decision was made to move the eggs, as the site was deemed risky for the baby turtles, said Mr Collin Tong, senior manager for the coastal and marine branch of NParks' National Biodiversity Centre.
He told reporters on Wednesday morning: "The nest site is next to a construction site, which is brightly lit at night. We have been told by our volunteers that hatchlings have been spotted hanging out in the waters near the site."
Turtle hatchlings use environmental cues to make their way from sand to sea, including light from the moon.
Light from other sources could confuse the young turtles. But there is no light pollution at the offshore Sisters' Islands, said Mr Tong.
The hope is that when the baby turtles emerge from the hatchery, the females would "imprint" on the Sisters' Islands beach - orienting themselves using Earth's magnetic field to return to Singapore's southern islands to nest when they become sexually mature in 25 years or so.
The hatchery, launched by NParks in September last year, aims to provide a conducive environment for turtle hatchlings to incubate, hatch safely and make it out to sea.
There are two species of sea turtles in Singapore: the hawksbill and green turtles. These reptiles can be directly affected by climate change, as their sexes are influenced by temperatures.
Female turtles hatch in warmer temperatures, whereas males hatch in cooler environments. In a warming world, this could skew the ratio of the sexes.
Mr Tong said NParks is able to control temperatures at the hatchery, maintaining sand temperatures at about 29 deg C, so it is more likely that a mix of male and female turtles would hatch from the clutch.
Hawksbill turtle nests have been spotted along Singapore's eastern coast, from Changi to the beaches along East Coast Park.
However, their nesting grounds may be under threat, if land reclamation works take place along Singapore's eastern coast.
In his National Day Rally speech on Sunday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that over the long term, Singapore is looking into major engineering feats to tackle the issue of sea level rise - a symptom of climate change that Singapore, an island state, is especially vulnerable to.
Among the strategies being considered are empoldering, a land reclamation technique, along Singapore's eastern coast, as well as reclaiming a series of offshore islands there. He said all options will be carefully considered before a decision is made.
Asked how the potential reclamation of the area could affect turtle nesting grounds, NParks said: "Agencies are still studying the options for coastal protection measures along the eastern coast to determine the best way forward."
Naturalist Bernard Seah, 50, noted that East Coast Park is currently located on reclaimed land. Turtles are adaptable, he said, and would return to sea if it deems an area unsuitable for nesting.
The NParks volunteer told The Straits Times: "I have mixed thoughts about the possibility that East Coast might be reclaimed further. Singapore needs more land, but we're not sure about how it will affect the turtles.
"But if the development eventually goes ahead and is done in a careful way, such as if it is done in segments, turtles will still have room to nest. This way, a balance can be struck," he said.
