Sea Turtles Nesting Process

[Please click on image to view in full size]

Key facts about Nesting

• Sea turtles take 20-30 years to mature before they are able to mate
• Nesting normally takes about 1.5-2 hours to complete
• Each nesting
• Green turtles lay an average of 100 eggs
• Hawksbill turtles lay an average of 150 eggs
• Female turtle rests for about 10-12 days in between each nests
• Female turtles nest about 5-6 times per season
• Breeding seasons occur every 3-5 years
• Only about 1 in 1000 hatchlings make it to maturity

I personally witness a turtle nesting at Long Beach, Redang. Read about it here.


References:

• www.umt.edu.my/seatru
• www.turtleconservationcentre.org/resources/educational-posters

[Images have been taken and used with permissions from Turtle Conservation Centre (TCC)]

Threats to Sea Turtles

Anybody know why are the number of sea turtles declining over the last 2 decades?
What are the main threats to the survival of these ancient animals?

Please view the following 2 posters produced by Turtle Conservation Centre (TCC) and SEATRU (Sea Turtle Research Unit).

At the end of the day, both the posters provide very similar yet concerning issues. Everything seen are actually due to human activities or human development has caused the following

• Poaching (collecting of sea turtles for meat, oil or leather)
• Eggs consumption (demand for turtle eggs as it is a local delicacy)
• Development (disrupt their breeding grounds)
• Sea Pollutions (turtles eat debris in the ocean thinking its food)
• Fisheries activities (innocent turtles get caught in fishing nets)

We as individual can only help to a certain limit on turtle conservation. By not purchasing any turtle based products, we would indirectly lessen the demand for people to capture and sell them. However legislation or laws would need to be implemented to help protect their natural breeding grounds as well as over fishing of sea turtles. International treaty would also need to be in place to protect these sea turtles from being over fished overseas.

You can show your support by signing a pledge not to consume Turtle eggs. The Say “NO” To Turtle Eggs Campaign has been organised by Turtle Conservation Centre (TCC) and you can show your support by visiting their page or click here to sign the pledge.


Reference

• www.turtleconservationcentre.org
• www.umt.edu.my/seatru
• Images provided by SEATRU 
• Images provided by Turtle Conservation Centre (TCC) (www.turtleconservationcentre.org/resources/educational-posters)
• Wiki page on sea turtles (link) 

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

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]

Introduction to Sea Turtles

 [Please click on the above image to view the poster in full size]

In our previous post, we talked about the turtle and and the difference between the the sea turtle, terrapins and tortoises. Read previous posts here. In today's post we look into the sea turtles.

As per the image above, there are basically there are 7 types of Sea Turtles. 5 out of the 7 turtles stated are already on the endangered list. Scary if you asked me... and the remaining 2 is not doing too well either.

Here in Malaysia, only 4 of these turtles nest on our shores.

• The leatherback turtle (penyu belimbing)
• The green turtle (penyu agar or penyu pulau)
• The hawksbill turtle (penyu sisik or penyu karah)
• The olive-ridley turtle (penyu lipas)

How many of you guys remembered the images and videos of the 80s and 90s, of huge Leatherback turtles on the shores of Rantau Abang, Terengganu. How many remembered that Terengganu was represented by endless beach with turtle nesting?

Back then, if you were to walk down those beaches, you'll probably be able to see a few nesting each night.... Well for the most of us, that is only a memory.... I personally have never seen one, and was told I probably won't have the opportunity to see a leatherback ever again... on our shores anyway....

Recently in the 2008, only 2 leatherback turtles nested at Rantau Abang, compared to once not too long ago of 10,000; formerly one of the world largest.

I guess with all these excessive consumption of turtle eggs as a local delicacy has not helped either. Also some of the earlier turtle hatching program wasn't as successful as the gender of the turtles are determined by the temperature of its nests. Failing to understand this has caused a series of same gender turtles to be released back to nature, causing an imbalance in the gender ratio.

[Please click on the above image to view the poster in full size]

Here we have a poster of the life cycle of the Sea Turtles. As you can see, it takes about 20-50 years for the turtles to mature before being able to return and mate. And of 1000 hatchilings, only ONE will survice to maturity... Such a low survival rate..... I guess the ocean is truly a harsh environment to live and grow up....

At the end of the day, the extinction of these animals are due to human interaction. Whether it is excessive consumption of turtle eggs, or rapid human development near their breeding grounds, it has clearly shown to cause the declination of these sea turtles. We'll have another article about the threats to sea turtles within the next few days. Stay tuned...

More laws, conservation activitie as we all as awareness programmes should in place to help protect these near extinct majestic creatures.

If you would like to learn more about Sea Turtles, please attend a talk given by Assoc. Prof. Liew Hock Chark on the 30th Sept during our Marine Awareness 2011 program. There would be a site visit to the turtle sanctuary at Chagar Hutang, Redang on the 1st Oct.

If you enjoy and find this article useful, please help by sharing it with your friends to help raise awareness of the declination of Sea Turtles here in Malaysia.

Reference

• www.turtleconservationcentre.org
• www.umt.edu.my/seatru
• Images provided by SEATRU 
• Images provided by Turtle Conservation Centre (TCC) (www.turtleconservationcentre.org/resources/educational-posters)
• Wiki page on sea turtles (link) 

 

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

SEATRU (Sea Turtle Research Unit) - Introduction

Raising awareness is an on-going and continuous process.

In today's fast-paced world, everyone is connected via some Social Network. We get hundreds if not thousands of updates everyday, some relevant while some is forgotten within the next few minutes.

With our attention span reducing as the world becomes faster, we need to provide the readers with relevant information. We believe the more informed the reader is, better decisions would be made, specially when it comes to conservation.

Today we would like to Introduce SEATRU (Sea Turtle Research Unit), a research unit based in Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT).

The following is taken directly from SEATRU's about us page. Link to SEATRU. 

About SEATRU

SEATRU is an acronym for the Sea Turtle Research Unit of Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT). The unit had its beginnings in 1984 when research on the leatherback turtles of Rantau Abang was first initiated by the then Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science, Universiti Pertanian Malaysia.

Sea turtle research at UMT has since developed into a multi-disciplinary program aimed at studying all aspects of the biology and ecology of sea turtles, threats to their survival, and how they can be managed in order to restore the various species to a stable population level. The vital information resulting from these studies have formed the basis for many important recommendations made by SEATRU to relevant government agencies for the conservation of sea turtles, especially within the state of Terengganu.

Besides carrying out conservation-oriented research on sea turtles, SEATRU is also directly involved in education of university students at the undergraduate and graduate levels, school children, and the public at large on the conservation of sea turtles. It also undertakes consultancy projects which are directly or indirectly related to sea turtles.

History

Chagar Hutang is an isolated beach in the northern most part of Redang Island. It is one of the three nesting beaches in Redang Island that have been declared as turtle sanctuary in 2005. Universiti MalaysiaTerengganu started the Sea Turtle Conservation Project at Chagar Hutang since 1993. This project was founded by Dr. Chan Eng Heng and Assoc. Prof. Liew Hock Chark.

In the early years, all nests incubated at Chagar Hutang were purchased from licensed egg collectors at RM120 per nest. A total of RM500,000 were spent (1993-2004) in the purchase alone. In order to support the long-term in situ egg incubation program, nesting and tagging research, the Turtle Research and Conservation Group had introduced outreach programs – the nest and turtle adoption schemes and the volunteer program. The success of this conservation work had been recognised by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) when it elected the former project executants to the Global 500 Roll of Honour in 2001.

In 17 years since the initiation of the project, a total of 5,000 green and 101 hawksbill turtle nests have been protected through the in-situ program. From these a total of 350,000 green and 7,000 hawksbill hatchlings were released to the ocean. Even so, it is too early to determine whether we have increased the population of sea turtles at Redang Island. Through the outreach programs, we are hoping to see some positive changes in the coming generations to protect and conserve sea turtles.

With a simple introduction to what SEATRU does, we'll be using the next few weeks leading up to our Marine Awareness weekend to raise awareness Turtle Conservation.

As attached below is a SEATRU brochure [click image to enlarge] explaining the purpose of SEATRU and their cause in Turtle Conservation

If you find this article useful, please help spread the word by sharing it with your friends.

[All images have been provided by SEATRU]