Turtle Tracking

Many sea turtles are born on our shores, however these sea turtle spend most of their life in the ocean looking for food and maturing until they are about 20-30 years old before returning to the shore where they were born to nest.

Most of our conservation efforts are done to protect these sea turtle eggs as well as their breeding grounds. However, who protects them in those 20-30 years in between them before they return to nest?

[Click on image above to view in full size]

Since these turtle spend most of their life in international waters, our conservation efforts need to be shared with all the countries that these sea turtles would visit. SEATRU has done some tracking studies on our SEA Turtles to better understand where these SEA Turtle migrates to, in between their breeding cycles.

So turtle conservation and raising awareness should not be only be local, but internationally too. What is the point of protecting our sea turtles just be caught and sold when they are in international waters?!

 [Click on image above to view in full size]

Based on the last 25 years of nesting trends in Terengganu, it is very obvious that it has decline sharply. As you can see from both articles these sea turtles travel far from their nesting grounds, some travel as far as 5000km. The study and tracking of these sea turtle are crucial to their survival. It is extremely important that we have some sort of International conservation efforts to save the remaining sea turtles before they head towards extinction...

Other Tracking Articles/Pages

• SEATRU had a joint Tracking project with Aquaria KLCC recently. Check this link for more info.
• seaturtle.org - Tracking page
• Sea Turtle Conservancy (cccturtle.org) - Tracking page

Reference

• www.umt.edu.my/seatru
• Images provided by SEATRU (Sea Turtle Research Unit)
• Wiki page on sea turtles (link)

[Images have been taken and used with permissions from SEATRU]

Sea Turtles Conservation in Redang

To the most of us, we associate Redang Island (Pulau Redang) with a holiday paradise. Lush crystal clear waters with endless powder like beaches; it is one of the top beaches in Malaysia. Ask anyone who has visited and I am sure they'll all agree. 

Of the 4 sea turtles that nest in Malaysia, only 2 of them, the Green Turtle and Hawksbill Turtle nest on Redang Island.

In Redang, there 3 areas that have been designated as Turtle Santuary.

• Chagar Hutang Turtle Sanctuary - Managed under SEATRU
• Mak Kapit Turtle Sanctuary - Managed under the Department of Fisheries Malaysia
• Mak Simpan - Managed under the Department of Fisheries Malaysia

Redang and the islands in its vacinity have also been designated as a Marine Park to help protect and conserve various habitats and marine life.

The Sea Turtle Conservation based at Chagar Hutang is managed by SEATRU (Sea Turtle Research Unit) of Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. Their duties includes studying of these sea turtles, collect & protect eggs under incubation and monitoring turtle nesting.

SEATRU also requires volunteers to help run their programme. If you would like help SEATRU or more info on their programme, please visit their site.


We are having a site visit to Chagar Hutang on the 1st Oct as part of our Marine Awareness program this year. All our guests staying over that period would get to visit this restricted (normally not opened to public) area.

Reference

• www.umt.edu.my/seatru
• Images provided by SEATRU (Sea Turtle Research Unit)
• Wiki page on sea turtles (link)

 

[Images have been taken and used with permissions from SEATRU]