Residents up in arms as endangered turtle dies in Bharuch lake

The residents of Bharuch city took out a rally to protest against the forest department and local administration after an endangered turtle died on Friday.

Sources said the turtle — Ganges Soft Shell Turtle, a rare and endangered spieces found only in rivers like Ganga, Mahanadi — allegedly died due to high pollution level in Ratan Talav located in the city.

The residents were miffed as they claimed that in last one month, five such endangered turtles have died and the administration has failed to take any step to prevent it. The procession was cut short after forest department officials intervened.

"We have approached the district collector at least thrice in last one month. Each time, we were told that he would first visit the sit and than talk to us. But today, another turtle was found dead. We had planned to take the procession to the collector office but the forest officials suddenly came in between. They have promised to take some step soon," said Kamlesh Parmar, a city-based activist.

The forest officials, on their part, said they will approach the civic body to clean up the pond, which is home to more than 100 such endangered turtles.

Deputy Conservator of Forest R L Patel told The Indian Express, "The postmortem report confirms that the creature died due to pollution and filth in the pond. We have asked the civic body to clean up the pond."

Traditional hunters keen to help lift turtle numbers

The Sea Turtle Foundation says it is confident turtle numbers will continue to grow, after educating traditional hunters on how to preserve the species.

David Row from the Townsville-based foundation has been visiting southern communities in Papua New Guinea with tips for turtle and dugong conservation.

He says hunters did not previously know a lot about the breading cycle of marine animals.

"Improve their understanding of their lifecycle, for example. When they start to understand, for example, that turtles may not start breeding until they are 40 years old, it really makes them understand the importance of protecting the breeding adults," he said.

Mr Row from says the communities are eager to learn new practices to save marine animal populations.

"Turtles and dugongs certainly provide an important source of protein for them. However, they have recognised that numbers are falling off and they have also recognised the importance of making changes that will help bring those numbers back," he said.

Behind the scenes at turtle hospital

JOY and heartbreak swim side by side at Reef HQ Aquarium's fledgling turtle hospital in Townsville.

Despite the best of intentions and staff skills, not all injured and sick turtles brought in will survive to be rehabilitated and released into the wild.

On a behind-the-scenes tour of the multi-million-dollar facility in North Queensland recently, staff were caring for five green sea turtles.

It was the morning after the night before for Reef HQ Aquarium director Fred Nucifora when he met our media group bright and early.

He had had only a few hours sleep after attending the North Queensland Tourism Awards at Townsville's Jupiters Casino, where the attraction won three from three award nominations (Major Tourist Attraction, Ecotourism and New Tourism Development for the turtle hospital).

But his unmistakable passion for his work, the Great Barrier Reef and the attraction's educational value shone through regardless.

Like a proud father, he introduced us to the sick turtles. We met “Bianca”, “Esmerelda”, “Porty” and “Timmy”, who were responding well to treatment.

Bianca, aged between 10 and 15, arrived at the hospital on July 11 from nearby Pallarenda Beach, where a collapsed lung was causing her buoyancy problems.

With antibiotics and a high-protein diet of squid and fish, she was almost back to normal and far from camera shy, lapping up all the human attention.

Fred said Reef HQ Aquarium was seeking permission to keep Bianca, who also suffered from the genetic condition leucism, which gave her a light-coloured shell, almost like an albino.

Rather than release her off Pallarenda Beach, where she would not only stand out like a beacon to predators but also be susceptible to sun legions, staff wanted to use Bianca for educational purposes.

Like great aunts, our group clucked around her and the other turtles like newborns.

Finally, we said goodbye and headed up a few steps to the last section of the hospital.

And then we saw her.

With a 114cm shell the size of a large oval coffee table, the 70-year-old turtle had jammed herself in beside the water inlet pipe, as if trying to hide from danger. When we realised something was drastically wrong, our collective hearts went out to this beautiful, helpless creature.

Like many of the turtles who come through the doors of the turtle hospital, she had floating syndrome.

And that's bad when you're a turtle. You want to dive down to the bottom of the sea floor to eat your food source, seagrass, but you can't stay down. You are forced to swim around the surface, where you are easy prey for sharks.

“We see a lot of it (floating syndrome), particularly after the winter period,” Fred said.

“Like humans, they get colds, pneumonia, and lung infections. We see lots of juveniles (with floating syndrome), not just old turtles.”

Fred said staff refrained from naming a “patient” until they were confident the creature could be rehabilitated. And this one would need long-term therapy and a little tender loving care before she reached that stage.

Since being opened by the then Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett in August last year, the turtle hospital has welcomed 30,000 visitors. The facility also acts as an invaluable teaching facility for James Cook University's new veterinary clinic, with students helping out with duties such as blood analysis.

Typically, four or five turtles are looked after at any one time but, as Fred said, “we sort of find it hard to say no” and up to 10 turtles could be accommodated.

Anyone finding sick or injured sea turtles should call the Marine Animal Stranding Hotline on 1300 130 372.

Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Services make an initial assessment and either has to euthanase the animal if deemed unlikely to survive, or bring it to the hospital for treatment and rehabilitation. The hospital also has its own four-wheel drive turtle ambulance for emergencies.

While Cairns had its own turtle rehabilitation centre, demand was growing in Townsville, Fred said, partly due to greater community awareness of the plight of all turtles.

He said the hospital planned to open a second wing soon.

The turtle hospital was the final stop on our special behind-the-scenes tour, which can be booked at the world's largest living coral reef aquarium.

This was my second tour of the attraction, having visited with my family nearly 15 years ago.

The fascinating underwater world – home to 200 of the 1500 fish species of the Great Barrier Reef – brought back happy memories of snorkelling all over the Pacific, but what impressed me most this time was how nature could be so meticulously presented.

Fred outlined the painstaking processes involved including coral collection, monitoring, propagating, cultivating and “planting”.

To create the facility 23 years ago, 700 tonnes of limestone rock and 20 tonnes of coral sand had to be trucked in, with water barged in from the reef. A total of 200,000 litres of water must be replenished each month from the tidal creek next to the complex, which is fed by Cleveland Bay. The attraction has no roof, allowing natural sunlight to stream into the coral, and a wave machine on the right-hand wall creates the wave action of a reef break.

While Reef HQ Aquarium had a permit to collect coral for display, Fred said the long-term goal was to become self-sufficient coral “gardeners”.

FOOTNOTE: Bianca has since been released into the 750,000-litre predator tank to stretch her flippers and grow.

REEF HQ

Reef HQ is open from 9.30am to 5pm, seven days a week, every day of the year except Christmas Day.

The Townsville aquarium at 2-68 Flinders Street welcomes 200,000 visitors a year.

Phone 4750 0800.

Visit www.reefHQ.com.au.

Donations can be made to the turtle hospital: visit the website or email info@reefhq.com.au.

Of course, baby turtles were heading for water

“LINNAEUS,” (Latin name for Carl von Linne) a Swedish botanist, established the system of binomial nomenclature and has been credited with naming the common snapping turtle in 1758. That was during the period when Linne was naming all the known species of animals.

This particular reptile was inquired of by one of our long-time Stratham readers who wrote, in part, on Oct. 10: “Last weekend we were taking a ‘backyard stroll’ when our daughter suddenly stopped and exclaimed, ‘Look, a baby turtle.’ Sure enough, it was a baby snapper. It was about as big as a quarter, but when I picked it up, it stretched its legs and clawed at my fingers. It was surprisingly strong, considering its size. We carried it to the edge of our pond and it quickly headed for the water and swam away.

“As we continued our walk, later in the day, we found four more babies, all headed in the same direction — to the pond. We did bring them inside and our daughter dug some earthworms but they were more interested in escaping. They struggled to climb out of the box — stepping on one another’s backs. So feeling sorry for them, we carried them outside and set them free. Again, they all headed in the same direction — to the pond.

“So tiny — will they survive the freezing pond and ice of winter?”

My answer is yes, and they may live to be over a hundred years of age. The snapping turtle, (Chelydra Serpentina) is the largest of the seven species of turtles found in New Hampshire and can weigh up to 40 pounds, according to my long-time friend Hilbert “Bandy” Siegler in his book, “New Hampshire Nature Notes.” In June and July female snappers are often seen attempting to cross our roads and highways searching for a suitable place to lay their eggs.

The turtle uses its hind feet to dig a suitable hole, lays her eggs, covers them up and leaves the scene as she has completed her reproductive duty.

Our reader’s baby turtles were doing just what they were supposed to do, head for water, where they spend most of their lives. Their feet are webbed so they are good swimmers.

Having no internal heating system means that they are “cold blooded animals” and they can only stay alive when temperatures approximate the air, earth or water surrounding them. Their lack of control of temperature means that they must hibernate during winter and seek shade when out of water to avoid direct rays of a very hot sun. Snapping turtles spend most of their time feeding on the bottom of lakes, ponds, and rivers. They eat vegetation as well as fish, small marine creatures, crustaceans, young ducks and geese, as well as carrion of all sorts.

A Manchester reader asked: “I have 26 birdhouses that are always full — never a vacancy.

Do I have to clean them out each year as they have to rebuild the insides?”

No, but an annual cleaning removes parasites and soiled material. Removing all material and hand washing the inside with bleach water as a disinfectant will help future nesters .

A Pembroke reader wrote, in part: “I have a question I wonder if you can answer.

We have a hummingbird feeder right outside our kitchen window. We enjoy watching the hummingbirds which have been abundant all summer. However, neither my husband nor I have seen a male hummingbird. The ruby throats are easy to spot so I know I have not seen any male birds. I believe in New Hampshire the ruby-throated hummers are the only species to be seen. Our birds are shades of green and vary in size. Any help you can give would be appreciated.”

As far as I know the Rufous hummingbird is the only other species of hummingbird that is infrequently seen in New Hampshire. Severalyearsago, thanks to a Hopkinton reader, I was able to photograph a male Rufous in their garden.

It is true that the male ruby-throat has a beautiful red gorget (throat patch) but the light has to be just right to see it, otherwise it appears black.

Generally speaking, the male takes very little interest in its young. The female builds the nest, lays two white, pea bean size eggs, does all the brooding and teaches the young what they need to know to survive. Occasionally, a male ruby-throat will buzz about the brooding female on her nest, appearing to offer some protection from predators, but rarely.

Most males, after mating, take little or no interest in anything but themselves, move about a territory and even begin their fall migration. Fledged young ruby-throats look much like females, so many more hummers can be seen at feeders in fall.

33 endangered turtles released into waters of Gulf of Mexico

Rescuers on Thursday released 33 endangered young turtle into the waters of Gulf of Mexico; approximately 40 miles southwest of Grand Isle, Louisiana after a survey confirmed that the water is safe for creatures.

Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator, said in a press statement, “We are able to release these turtles because they’re now healthy and we’re seeing recovery in the surface habitats of the Gulf of Mexico.

“They are being released within federal waters off the coast of Louisiana that earlier this month, NOAA reopened to fishing. This was another important sign of improvement in the health of the Gulf of Mexico.”

These turtles had been rescued by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Audubon Nature Institute, three months back from Louisiana, Florida and Georgia.

Then they were successfully rehabilitated at the Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans, where scientists treated, cleaned and de-oiled them.

The turtles that were released in the waters on Thursday included species of green Kemp’s ridley, hawksbill and loggerhead sea turtles.

Rescue efforts paid off
Dubbed as the worst oil spill in the history of the United States, the spill began after an explosion on April 20 on the offshore drilling platform Deepwater Horizon took place, killing 11 men.

Within two days, the whole platform sank and oil started to take over Gulf waters, making everyone worried about the lives of sea creatures.

“They are being released within federal waters off the coast of Louisiana that earlier this month, NOAA reopened to fishing. This was another important sign of improvement in the health of the Gulf of Mexico,” stated Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.

For the very first time scientists carried out a huge rescue mission to save the endangered sea species and managed to rescue over 500 turtles from the oil spill.

Around 400 of the rescued turtles were placed in rehabilitation as they were heavily oiled and need immediate treatment. However, those who did suffer much were released immediately (after running some tests) in other healthy habitats.

Rescuers not just started a mission to save rare endangered turtles but also began an unprecedented rescue mission to save thousands of rare turtles’ eggs.

On path to recovery
Many experts have welcomed agencies decision to release turtles into their natural habitat as it’s also an indication that Gulf waters is becoming safe.

"Returning this group of sea turtles to their home waters is ... a sign that Louisiana is on the path towards recovery," said Randy Pausina, an assistant secretary for Louisiana's office of fisheries.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to combat the residual oil left in the gulf waters, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has also started an initiative to build series of low lying sand islands in the Gulf of Mexico.

Endangered turtles sent to U.S. for new life

Los Angeles, Oct. 20 (CNA) A total of 50 rare yellow- headed temple turtles arrived in the U.S. city of Atlanta Wednesday for new life through a cooperative effort by Eva Airways, the Taipei Zoo and the U.S.-based Turtle Survival Alliance, according to airline officials. The Eva Airways flight carrying the turtles left Hong Kong Oct. 19 for Atlanta via Taipei. The animals will be sent to the Turtle Survival Alliance, which will arrange for them to be distributed among various shelters around the country. The officials said after being notified of the rescue mission through the zoo's Conservation and Research Center, the carrier agreed to help transport the 600-kg cargo for only a nominal fee. The turtles were among a haul of 1,300 smuggled freshwater turtles that were seized by Hong Kong marine police in February. The yellow-headed temple turtle, the largest freshwater turtle in Asia, is an endangered species. Without the assistance of EVA Air, the turtles would have been destroyed in Hong Kong because their origin could not be identified, the officials said. (By Leaf Jiang and Olivia Wang) ENDITEM/J

Coral Reef Studies - Turtle, dugongs 'at risk under climate change'

'Turtle and Dugong at risk' ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies ©

The 'turtle and dugong capital of the world', the northern Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and Torres Strait region, faces increased pressure under climate change from human actions such as fishing, hunting, onshore development and pollution.

'Depletion of turtle and dugong numbers increases their vulnerability to other threats and lowers their ability to cope with climate change,' Dr Mariana Fuentes of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University will tell the Coral Reef Symposium in Canberra today.

Dr Fuentes says that turtles in particular are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which include decreases in hatching success, loss of nesting areas and overheated beaches, which will decrease the turtles’ reproductive output and may significantly alter the sex ratio of their offspring.

Dr. Fuentes’ research into the green, hawksbill and flatback turtles and well as dugongs in the northern GBR and Torres Strait is seeking to establish priorities for the management of marine megafauna to increase their resilience to climate change.

'Managers face the challenge of addressing the direct effects of climate change, as well as ongoing threats that dugongs and sea turtles face throughout their geographic range,' she explains. 'For logistical, financial and political reasons, managers cannot address all threats simultaneously, and so need to prioritize their actions.

Of particular concern is the effect of climate change on the gender balance of turtle population, Dr Fuentes says: 'The temperature of the beach sand determines the gender of the hatchlings – warmer sand produces more females while cooler sand produces more males.'

'Under current conditions the nesting grounds are already producing more females. With an increasing temperature, these turtles are at risk of stretching out the ratio, though we can’t yet predict exactly when it will cause an unbalanced population.'

'While sea turtles have survived large climatic fluctuations during their evolutionary history, modern rates of climate change are much faster, and are coupled with additional human pressures,' says Dr Fuentes. 'We still do not know whether turtles can adapt to modern rates of climate change.'

Turtle and Dugong at risk - ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies © Click Here to view large photo

Dugongs may experience indirect effects of climate change and human activity through impacts on their main food source, seagrass. Seagrass diebacks are linked to lower reproduction, increased mortality and emigration of dugongs.
Dr Fuentes has been working closely with indigenous communities in the Torres Strait region and northern GBR to monitor turtle numbers and condition and to track the movements of dugongs.

She says it will be important to take a range of short-term and long-term measures to protect turtles and dugongs from climate change, including:

* reducing the negative stresses that they are currently subject to.
* actively trying to change the habitat they use (e.g. by shading nests, re-vegetating beaches, and replacing lost sand).
* protecting areas that seem to offer the best conditions as refuges in the future.

'Turtles and dugongs have numerous roles – apart from their cultural and spiritual significance to the indigenous community, they are important for the tourism industry. Being at the top of the food chain also means that they have high ecological significance.'

The loss of these species would have a huge impact on the northern Australian marine environment and on indigenous communities, she warns.

'There are still many uncertainties over how turtles and dugongs will be impacted by climate change. For the time being the best prospects for their survival are to mitigate climate change (by reducing carbon emissions) and to reduce negative pressure on turtles and dugongs from activities such as hunting and coastal development.'

'However, as the impacts of climate change become more extreme, more ‘active’ adaptation strategies may be necessary. The success of each adaptation option will depend on climatic impact and local social, economic and cultural conditions, and therefore needs to be considered on a case by case basis, and at a local scale,' Dr Fuentes explains.

Dr Fuentes will be presenting the results of her research on Friday the October 8th at 'Coral reefs in a changing environment', at the Academy of Science’s Shine Dome. Media are invited to attend the coral symposium and interview the scientists.

Gulf Turtle Egg Relocation Judged a Success

Finally some good news to report following the Deepwater Horizon summer. A massive effort to rescue thousands of turtle eggs appears to have worked. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is 14,676 hatchlings -- mostly loggerheads - from the roughly 25,000 sea turtles eggs that it moved to Florida's east coast from northern beaches.

With a hatching success rate over 50%, biologists have a lot to be happy about. Still, there remain concerns whether the egg transfer will impact the turtles later on in life. In particular, they still don't know which beaches the turtles will return to. As a report in Live Science noted, there's uncertainty about whether the relocation disrupted the process of imprinting, which allows female turtles to set up nests on the beach where they hatched. "Some think that imprinting occurs in the egg, others that it occurs as newly hatched turtles crawl towards the sea, and some believe that it may be a combination of the two. So it is unknown to which beaches turtles incubated primarily on northen Gulf beaches then released from beaches on the Atlantic Ocean will return."

Turtle nesting numbers up, surprising experts

By DINAH VOYLES PULVER, Environment Writer

October 3, 2010 12:05 AM

With a month to go in sea turtle nesting season along Florida'scoastlines, observers are feeling pretty optimistic.

Nesting numbers are up at key beaches around the state that are used for tracking overall trends, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. That includes all three major species in Florida: loggerheads, greens and leatherbacks.

Loggerhead and green turtle nesting also increased locally this year, showing big improvements after dramatic declines in nesting last year.

Officials and advocates say they hope the increases mean some of the efforts to bring back the endangered and threatened turtles are working.

The results have been especially surprising for observers because nesting season got off to a slow start and they weren't optimistic, said Blair Witherington, a research scientist with the commission who is based in Brevard County.

"In years past, we've noticed cold water often puts a damper on sea turtle nesting," Witherington said. The water offshore early this season was "very cold," making it look like this could be a "very poor nesting season."

"Then the water warmed up and the sea turtle nesting season really warmed up," he said.

At beaches all along the local coastline, observers have been surprised and delighted by the number of turtle nests. At Canaveral National Seashore, with 12 miles in Volusia and 12 in Brevard County, it has been a "great" season, said John Stiner, resource management specialist. Observers counted 5,583 total nests over the 24 miles.

"We're quite a ways over what we've had before," Stiner said, more than 1,000 nests over the previous record high in 2000.

Elsewhere along local beaches it "looks like a very good year," said Beth Libert, president of the Volusia/Flagler Turtle Patrol, which monitors nests in Flagler County and north of Ponce Inlet in Volusia.

Keeping close watch over sea turtles can be an emotional roller coaster, with nest numbers fluctuating wildly from year to year, and hatchlings falling victim to any number of catastrophes. A rare Kemp's Ridley nest in Volusia this year caused great excitement, but the eggs never hatched. An evaluation showed the eggs were infertile.

Observers have been particularly concerned about loggerhead nests, which suffered a declining trend in the past decade after a climb in the 1990s. A jump in loggerhead nest numbers in 2008 had officials hoping things were turning around, but nest numbers dropped again last year, with just a little more than half the nests of the previous year.

This year, the loggerhead nests bounced back almost to their 2008 level, with 2,155 nests counted along the Volusia coastline. In 2008, there were 2,239.

"It has been very encouraging," Stiner said.

While a bit of celebration may be in order for a singularly good year, Witherington said one great season doesn't reverse the decline seen in loggerhead nesting during the past 10 years.

Experts are never really certain why the numbers rise some years and drop in others. A rise in one season may simply reflect the number of turtles that decided to migrate to nest, he said. The biggest influence on any given season isn't the overall turtle population, but the number of turtles that nest.

"Every year we're just seeing part of the population nesting," Witherington said. More nests over three or four years would mean an increase in turtle numbers.

Perhaps many of the conservation measures taken in the past couple of decades are having a positive impact, he said.

One of the "most important milestones" was a rule that took effect just after the turn of the century, requiring the openings on turtle excluder devices on fishing nets to be large enough to exclude adult loggerheads, he said. "That benefited nesting sea turtles a great deal."

It has also been a big year for green turtles, Witherington said, with nests still appearing almost daily.

Libert said two green turtle nests were found on Flagler beaches Thursday morning. Witherington was surprised to hear about the number of green turtle nests at Canaveral.

The seashore reports a total of 1,314 green turtle nests so far, with 409 of those in Volusia. "That's just absolutely unheard of," Witherington said.

"Green turtles are a unique success story," he said. "Back in the late '80s in Volusia County, there were probably just a handful of sea turtle nests during a season."

Turtle poacher sentenced

An Agat man arrested on Saturday for allegedly trying to sell an endangered green sea turtle has been sentenced to five months in prison for committing the exact same crime in 2008.

Convicted turtle poacher Roque Chargualaf Inocentes was re-sentenced on Tuesday, according to District Court of Guam records.

In May of 2008, Inocentes and three others were caught hunting turtles with spear guns, files state. Conservation officers caught them with a turtle that had been killed with a spear through the breastplate, files state.

Inocentes pleaded guilty to four months later and was sentenced to three years of probation, court documents state.

He was re-arrested on Saturday after one of the same conservation officers caught him allegedly attempting to sell a 25-pound turtle for $125. The turtle died because it was pieced through the neck, court documents state.

As a result, Inocentes was charged with "taking a threatened species" -- the same crime he pleaded guilty to in 2008.

Even with his recent arrest, Inocentes could have had his probation revoked. District Court files show a federal judge was considering sending Inocentes to prison for other reasons -- like testing positive for drug use and skipping drug tests -- before he was caught with the second turtle.

Lost Turtle Found At Otaki Beach

Massey University is scanning a critically ill green sea turtle that washed up on Otaki beach, a long way from her home in the tropics.

The 70-centimetre-long turtle was found by a member of the public Wednesday, with the animal taken to the university’s Manawatu campus, where she was discovered to be suffering from pneumonia and a fractured shell.

Usually, green sea turtles are to be found in tropical waters, its closest known habitat being Australia’s North Queensland coast, which is why the turtle was seen to be suffering from shock due to being in cold waters, according to wildlife veterinarian Kerri Morgan.

Vets have placed the turtle on an intravenous drip, including taping back her flippers to squeeze her through the CT scanner used for cats and dogs, normally.

Morgan says a lung biopsy will be carried out in a couple of day to find out what kind of pneumonia she is suffering from and how best it should be treated.

Once the turtle recovers, instead of deporting her to Australia which might prove difficult due to bio-security issues, she could be sent to an aquarium for rehabilitation.

Turtles are known to be quite resilient and it is possible, she might be able to swim home.

The Oil and the Turtles

Every year, Rancho Nuevo, 900 miles southwest of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, sees a spectacular phenomenon: the arribada—mass nesting—of the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, which has already neared extinction. This year, thousands of baby ridleys swam off toward a deadly new enemy.

By Alex Shoumatoff•

Photograph by Gary Braasch

WEB EXCLUSIVE September 21, 2010

Ridley-turtle hatchlings head into the Gulf in Tamaulipas, Mexico.

Of all the devastation in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the Deepwater Horizon blowout, no one single species is being directly affected as much as the critically endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle. Only 8,000 adult females nested in 2009, and the adult males are thought to be even fewer. Those that remain have been hit hard. Most of the surviving juveniles inhabit the waters 20 to 30 miles from shore, feeding and growing in the same currents and gyres that collected the bulk of the four million barrels spewed by the now capped well. There were confirmed reports of ridleys being burned alive in the pools of corralled, concentrated oil that BP had been burning off during the spill.

Almost every gravid female ridley lays her eggs on a single beach in Tamaulipas, Mexico, coming ashore in a unique mass-nesting event known as the arribada—the arrival. Kemp’s cousins in the Pacific, the Olive ridleys, also do this, but the other five sea-turtle species (and a small percentage of ridleys) are solitary nesters and don’t always return to the same place. The arribadas happen at Rancho Nuevo—a beach 900 miles southwest from the blowout. It’s only 200 miles south of Brownsville, Texas. Not a bad drive, only I’m told it’s too dangerous because three warring factions of narcotrafficantes—the Gulf cartel, the Zetas (former hit men of the cartel), and a local mafia called La Maña—have been having shoot-outs along it. Instead, I fly to Tampico, the sleepy port where the opening scene of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was filmed, which is 60 miles south of Rancho Nuevo. (Not that Tampico is immune to the violence; the week before I arrive, the naked bodies of five policemen were found hanging from one of its bridges, I am told by a fellow gringo who narrowly escaped being shaken down at one of the narcos’ impromptu roadblocks right in the city.) I’m met at the airport by two people from the federal agency that manages Mexico’s protected areas, and they whisk me to the nearby Hampton Inn for the night.

In the morning we are driven to the Rancho Nuevo beach reserve by its director Dr. Gloria Tavera. Its 20 miles of wild white sand are patrolled three times a day by guards on A.T.V.’s, and 20 times a day or more during nesting season. Dr. Tavera tells me that the arribadas are over, but that the white ping-pong-ball-size eggs, having incubated for 45 days, are starting to hatch.

Sure enough, at five a.m. on the second morning, we jump onto four-wheelers and bomb down to the South Corral, four miles from the camp, where dozens of the 800 nests from the June 3 arribada are erupting with hatchlings, about 90 per nest. The babies are three inches long and look like black rubber-toy turtles. They crawl down to the surf and, as soon as they hit the water, their angled forelimbs begin to flap wildly. Then they’re pulled into the breaking waves by the undertow and are off, on their own, into the great unknown. Guided by pure instinct, fueled by the remaining yoke in their waterproof belly sacs, they will swim straight out for five days or so until they hit the mats of sargassum, a golden-brown, free-floating marine algae (these lines of sargassum are often only 20 or 30 feet wide, but can extend for miles, and offer cover and food for the hatchlings). We don’t know how many hatchlings will survive to adulthood, but the most common ballpark estimate is only one in a thousand. Many will be picked off by sharks, many other species of fish, dolphins, and sea birds. Everything wants to eat them. But many more than usual will die when the clockwise currents of the Gulf carry the turtles directly up into the area contaminated by the Deepwater Horizon spill. “The internal damage from the hydrocarbons to the organs of the ridleys could make them unable to reproduce,” Dr. Tavera tells me. “That would mean extinction. But nobody knows.”

Her fears could be well founded. A new study of shorebirds finds that the ingestion of only a small amount of oil can cause lasting changes in brain function and behavior. The males’ pheromones are inhibited so they stop doing their mating behavior.

Conservationists rallied round the ridley in 1978, when human predation left them hanging by a thread. Poaching of the eggs—rich and delicious, they had long been part of the local diet—was stopped, and in l986, when only 600 females came back to nest at Rancho Nuevo, an American law was passed requiring shrimp fishermen meeting certain criteria to equip their nets with escape holes for turtles known as TEDs (turtle excluder devices). For a time, it was working. In 2009 there were 21,000 nests. Six thousand females came ashore over a two-day period that May, the biggest arribada in the 40-year history of the conservation program at Rancho Nuevo. But this year there were only 13,115 nests, the result of a record cold winter followed by three months of red tide, a toxic algae bloom that prevented the females from being able to access the beach. Then, on June 30, the beach was slammed by Hurricane Alex, and a thousand more nests were lost.

Barbara Schroeder, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association in Silver Spring, Maryland, thinks the spill is unlikely to spell the end of the ridley but it “is definitely a setback to the turtle’s recovery. We are going to have to enhance our efforts to get the species back on the trajectory it was on, and we will need to re-look at the most significant human threats—bycatch from shrimp and other trawlers and gill nets, hook and line-fishing, and boat strikes.”

That the four million barrels of oil seem to be dissipating more quickly than expected does not mean the turtles will no longer be affected. The oil below the surface concerns many experts. Kemp’s ridleys in nearshore areas feed on the bottom, which means they have to dive through the oil. What’s more, this relatively quick disappearance of the large oil pools was achieved because BP dumped nearly two million gallons of the highly toxic chemical dispersant Corexit into the Gulf—in some cases, without the necessary approval of the Environmental Protection Agency. Corexit, used to break up large pools of oil in water, is an alarmingly unknown entity. Scientists in Louisiana are just beginning to study its effects on marine life in the Gulf. They’ve discovered high levels of it in blue-crab larvae, which suggests the poison may have already entered the food chain, just in time for the start of Louisiana’s shrimp season. Blue crabs are the ridley’s favorite food.

Ed Clark, the president of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, who has been treating oiled wildlife for 28 years, tells me that the dispersant is like “putting a coat of new paint on a junk car.” The official marine-life casualty numbers, Clark maintains, are grossly underestimated. “If they’re saying 400 turtles were killed, I’d bet my house it’s more like 4,000,” he says.

“BP is responsible for the damages”—up to $50,000 per turtle, as per the Endangered Species Act—“but it is incumbent on the government to prove what [the damages] are,” says Clark. He has heard rumors that the cleanup crews on Grand Isle, Louisiana, which are mainly made up of prisoners, were bagging dead turtles and birds in plastic bags marked for incineration because no one from Fish and Wildlife responded to their calls. The F.W.S. agents were mainly focused on federally owned coastline. It may go beyond unresponsive government agencies. Clark also heard rumors that BP was deliberately burning oiled sargassum, even though living sea turtles were known to be still in the floating mats.

So the crisis isn’t over, as BP and the government would have you believe. It’s only beginning. The biological consequences of this disaster will be felt for years, over generations, like Chernobyl. And we may never know how bad it was.

Vancouver Aquarium volunteers help sea turtles recover from Gulf oil spill

By Rhiannon Coppin, Vancouver Sun September 13, 2010 3:20 PM

At the Audubon Institute in Gretna, La., sea turtles suspected of swallowing oil spilled from the Deepwater Horizon rig are being fed mayonnaise and vegetable oils to help purge their digestive tracts.

To treat their exteriors, volunteers like Chelsea DeColle use Dawn soap, just as the television commercials claim. "It's the No. 1 detergent used to clean oil off oiled animals," she said.

DeColle, a 30-year-old veterinary technician on loan from the Vancouver Aquarium, tended to each of 167 turtles in her two-week volunteer stint at the Audubon centre in August.

Staff and volunteers repeatedly went through the same lists of animals -- the bulk of them green sea turtles -- checking their weights, appetites, wound-healing, medications and blood profiles, and sometimes taking radiographs. "Day to day was fairly similar," DeColle said.

The youngest and smallest patient, at one pound, was a two-year-old green sea turtle. The largest was a lone loggerhead of unknown age. Hawksbill and Kemp's Ridley turtles rounded out the temporary collection.

"Most of them were in fairly good condition and we were just maintaining them so that they could gain weight and meet all the criteria for release," DeColle said.

There were exceptions. One turtle that wasn't eating on its own was stressed at being fed through a throat tube. "The doctors ended up placing a tube that sticks out of the neck but actually goes to the esophagus through the skin," she said.

The skin was stitched up around the tube and the tube was glued to the shell, to make feeding a simple matter of injecting fish mush into the tube.

DeColle also visited with a bottlenose dolphin. "I got to participate in one procedure with it. We had to go in the water and actually take the dolphin out to put it on a scale and take blood samples," she said.

The additional training DeColle received and her exposure to new animals, procedures and people is a "win-win" for the Gulf Coast and for British Columbia, said Dr. Martin Haulena, 43, a veterinarian who helms the Vancouver Aquarium's mammal care team. Four staff veterinary technicians will each spend two weeks on the rescue effort.

"Certainly the animals and the people directly involved in the Gulf are benefiting from the expertise of some of the best vet techs anywhere," he said. "On the flip side, they're making friends and contacts and firming up relationships with other experts."

And should a marine oil disaster strike in B.C. waters, those connections will be vital.

Haulena's career experience has taken him to the front of many marine oil spills, mainly in California, where he worked for nine years, but also to the birthplace of the theory of evolution -- Ecuador's Galapagos Islands -- following a fuel-tanker spill in 2001 that killed many marine iguanas.

"There was a good amount of oil that could have potentially devastated one of the worlds' most beloved ecological reserves," Haulena said. "To have that kind of place affected by a man-made accident is a big deal."

An oil spill in B.C. would be an equally big deal, he said. Animals that use feathers or fur for insulation or buoyancy would be most affected. On the coast, an oil spill could wipe out flocks of migratory birds. It could kill many sea otters and other mammals, as we've seen on the Alaskan coast.

During DeColle's stint, 25 turtles gained enough weight to be released.

Project Orion 2 video

Hi guys,

just to share some video we have just received from the video cam. enjoy..

Hot day in Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve!

Greetings to all readers!

Project Orion II team members made their way to Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve (SBWR) after a long break from the overseas trip! It was a day to get dirty and wet, not forgetting to mention getting sunburn too!


After everyone gathered at the isolated compound, everyone was given a short briefing and introduction by one of the staffs over there. Then we proceeded to our destination which was very far away from the information centre. However, no one complained and in fact, enjoyed themselves!


The scouts were given another briefing on what to do for the next few hours, which included picking up of rubbish, planting of mangroves. It was a no-brainer picking up thrash on the beach but strict instructions were made known to everyone to ensure that the plants were carefully planted into the muddy ground.

The team sincerely hopes that everyone who participated in this event brought back valuable experiences and knowledge where they can share with their friends and family members regarding environmental conservation!

As what our founder said, 'Leave this world a little better than you found it'. That is what everyone did and you can do it too!

Scientists Say New Turtle Species Found

PASCAGOULA, Miss. – Scientists say they've found a new species of turtle in the Pearl River, and they've named it, aptly enough, the Pearl map turtle.

For a long time, scientists believed the Pascagoula map turtle was alone in the Pascagoula and Pearl rivers. That changed with the findings by Jeff Lovich and Josh Ennen, both with the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Pearl map turtle is 57th turtle species native to the United States and the 13th map turtle. Twenty-nine species can be found in Mississippi.

Lovich's research in 1992 led to his discovery of the Pascagoula map turtle and the Escambia map turtle, which is found in the Escambia River system. He told The Mississippi Press that he had noticed "very subtle differences between the turtles that lived in the Pearl and Pascagoula" rivers while doing research in the 1990s.

"I thought, 'Well, I'll leave those for somebody else to work out,"' he said.

That somebody was Ennen, who works for Lovich at the USGS Southwest Biological Science Center in Flagstaff, Ariz. Ennen discovered the Pearl map turtle while doing research on map turtle species for his doctorate at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Lovich said Ennen called him and said new genetic data showed differences between the Pascagoula and Pearl map turtles.

"The differences between the turtles in the Pearl and Pascagoula were significant and he wanted to know if I wanted to team up with him and run my analyses based on color pattern, measurements of the shell and those sorts of things and combine the data with his new genetic information based on DNA and we did that," Lovich said.

"The results were clear. They were definitely different species," Lovich said.

Lovich said the United States is a "turtle hot spot as far as biodiversity. The only countries that have turtles with the same biodiversity would be places like China and India."

The female Pearl map turtle is about dinner-plate-sized and the male is tea-saucer-sized, he said. The larger females can use their jaws to crush open clams while the smaller males eat mostly insects and fish.

Lovich said map turtles get their name from yellow lines on their shells that resemble roads on a map. The Pearl map turtle has an unbroken black stripe on its shell while the Pascagoula map turtle's stripe is broken, he said. The Pearl map turtle has less yellow coloring in its shell than its Pascagoula cousin, he said.

"The neat thing about rivers in the southeast United States, all the ones that drain into the Gulf of Mexico, they have amazing biodiversity," Lovich said. "In fact, Alabama probably has more species of clams, fish, crayfish, turtles than just about any place on earth."

He said rising and falling sea levels led to species being separated and joined over tens of thousands of years.

"It is a kind of a laboratory for evolution, if you will," Lovich said.

De-oiled turtles given new lease on life in the Gulf

Assorted wildlife and law agencies pooled resources Tuesday to release 42 de-oiled Kemp's ridley sea turtles that were victims of the recent northern Gulf of Mexico spill.

The turtles were gently placed into the Gulf waters about five miles from Goodland by members of agencies, including the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Audubon Nature Institute, Mote Marine Laboratory, SeaWorld in Orlando, Walt Disney World and Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

Veterinarian Dr. Kara Field had the whole mission close to her heart. Having traveled down from New Orleans after assisting with de-oiling for the past couple of months, she said most of the turtles were found off the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

“The first oiled turtle that was picked up from the spill came into Louisiana on May 18,” she said. “Since then, we’ve probably received about 100 turtles before most of the other places starting receiving them, so we got a lot of the really densely oiled animals.”

She said the oil completely covered their eyes and mouths, and was actually on their corneas, compromising their vision.

Field said it wasn’t a case of disoriented turtles washing up conveniently for de-oiling.

“We waited for a while … we thought we’d start seeing turtles coming in, but they didn’t, so NOAA and Fish & Wildlife made a decision to go out and actively look for them,” Field said.

According to NOAA, the turtles are the smallest in the world, weighing on average around 100 pounds. The turtles released Tuesday were about two years old and weighed 10 pounds.

“We were pretty shocked at how oiled they were,” Field said, “We had to used gauze to swab out their mouths. But we only lost three out of 194 animals.

The release area was chosen because it’s known that turtles favor the area, Field said.

Malaysian police seize smuggled turtle eggs

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian marine police said Sunday they had seized 6,250 turtle eggs smuggled in from a neighbouring country to be sold on the island of Borneo as a delicacy.

Gan Ping Sin, the marine police chief of Sandakan, in Borneo's eastern state of Sabah, said the eggs, worth 11,250 ringgit (3,580 dollars), were seized in an operation on Friday.

"The turtle eggs were seized from a boat in the Malaysian water during our operation but the boat operator managed to escape," Gan told AFP.

"We believe the eggs are smuggled in from a neighbouring country," he said but refused to identify which one.

The turtle eggs have been handed to wildlife authorities, Gan said, vowing to step up police operations in the area which he said had seen "quite rampant" turtle egg smuggling.

Turtle eggs are openly sold in markets in parts of Malaysia. Turtles once arrived in their thousands to lay their eggs on Malaysian beaches but are now increasingly rare due to poaching and coastal development.

Under Malaysian law, it is illegal to collect turtle eggs without a permit from the fisheries department but steady demand for turtle products and eggs in Southeast Asia continues to drive the illegal trade.

This prompted environmental group WWF to launch a campaign to stop Malaysians eating turtles in April last year, in a bid to help save stocks of the sea creatures.

Endangered Hawksbill turtles released off Singapore

SINGAPORE — Thirteen endangered sea turtles born and bred in Japan were released off Singapore waters Tuesday as part of efforts to conserve the species.

The five one-year-olds and eight three-year-olds are the offspring of Hawksbill turtles donated by the Underwater World Singapore aquarium to the Port of Nagoya aquarium in 1997 and 2002.

They were brought to Singapore earlier this year and kept at the Underwater World aquarium before the eventual release into their natural habitat.

"I feel a sense of great relief because the turtles are where they belong,' George Balazs, biologist and leader of marine turtle research at the Hawaii-based Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center.

"Sea turtles in the sea," the scientist said after the last turtle swam into the water.

The three-year-olds were fitted with satellite tracking devices so that scientists can follow their progress.

The turtles were first transported in boxes from nearby Sentosa island and then released on a stretch of beach on Big Sister's Island.

They crawled down the beach to the water's edge and disappeared into the sea as conservationists, scientists, students and the media erupted into cheers and applause.

"This release project has our strong desire that we want to return those Japanese-born turtles to Singaporean sea (which is) the native place of their parents," said Makoto Soichi, director with the Nagoya aquarium.

Underwater World Singapore said cooperation was key to efforts to conserve turtles which are regarded as a delicacy in parts of Asia.

"We hope that our integrated and collaborative efforts will contribute to our better understanding of Hawksbill turtle behaviour and improve turtle conservation efforts," said Peter chew, deputy general manager of the Singapore aquarium.

Turtle soup is a delicacy in parts of Asia and turtle shells are crushed into powder for use in a jelly dessert.

The Hawksbill shell is also used to make products like combs, ornamental hairpins and glasses frames.

Witness the Hawksbill Turtle Tag and Release at Big Sister Island

Underwater World Singapore hosted the Multidisciplinary Forum- "Turtles Towards Extinction: How Late are we? Is it too late?" to facilitate cross-disciplinary discussions. After the forum participants will also have the opportunity to witness the Hawksbill turtle tag and release at Big Sister Island. The preliminary results will be presented at COP 10* in nagoya, japan, in october 2010.

Below is the news reported on channel 8.

Baby turtles die, disoriented by offshore lights

BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. -- Baby loggerhead turtles in two southwest Florida communities have died after crawling toward land-based lights instead of the horizon of the Gulf.

Eve Haverfield, founder of Turtle Time, a nonprofit organization, said turtles from five nests in Bonita Springs and Collier County became disoriented because of lights illegally shone on the beach.

Haverfield said one nest near a home where two bright lights were aimed toward the beach had 112 eggs. She rescued 17 hatchlings still in the nest and three found crawling on a street.

Four were crushed and she believes 58 were eaten by birds or died from exhaustion.

All the turtle tracks led away from the water.

A Bonita Spring environmental specialist said he will send a notice of violation to the property owner.
-------------------

PO II input: To future Project Orion teams, keep this in mind so as not to shine your torchlights when you are releasing the baby turtles into the sea. =)

Oil spill update: Sea Turtle eggs relocation changes, President Obama visits Gulf

Oil spill cleanup efforts continue and this past weekend President Obama visited Panama Beach, Florida to get a firsthand view of recovery in the Gulf. Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha joined as they enjoyed some fun activities as well. President Obama spoke at the Coast Guard base and assured the nation that recovery efforts were well underway. Additionally, the Florida Fish and Wildlife announced that they were ceasing the sea turtle eggs relocation program in two Florida counties: Franklin and Gulf. You may see a photo slideshow from President Obama’s Gulf Coast visit below.

The sea turtle egg relocation program has been a success but with the stop of oil flow in the Gulf of Mexico, authorities determined that the nests may remain in these Florida counties. Kipp Frohlich who leads the Florida Fish and Wildlife’s Imperiled Species Section stated, “The decision to move nests was made after careful consideration, and the decision to let the nests remain where they are required the same evaluation and weighing of the information. Just as we established protocols to move the nests, we developed a set of criteria to help us determine when it would be appropriate to discontinue or scale back nest relocations.”

Aerial flights were used to determine where locations of sargsssum were present. Tests were determined and visible oil was not found. Dr. Robbin Trindell who is a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission explained, “The patches of sargassum we examined contained abundant life, including important prey species for sea turtle hatchlings. It is very good habitat for sea turtle hatchlings.”

As of August 11, 2010, 209 sea turtle nests have been relocated and more than 6,000 sea turtle hatchlings have been hatched and released safely into the Atlantic Ocean.

Rare 'princess' turtle returns to Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR — A leatherback turtle has made a surprise return to a Malaysian beach after 32 years, a report said Friday, hailed as a "miracle" by conservationists and renewing hopes for the endangered species.

The leatherbacks -- the largest of all sea turtles -- were once a star attraction at Rantau Abang beach in Malaysia's northern state of Terengganu but overfishing, poaching and pollution caused the population to plummet.

The turtle, dubbed the "Puteri Rantau Abang" or Rantau Abang Princess and identified by special markings, returned last month to end a long dry spell of turtle landings which have been rare in Terengganu since the 1980s.

"It is a miracle that leatherback turtles are making a comeback to this area," Malaysian Fisheries Department director-general Ahamad Sabki Mahmood said according to The Star newspaper.

Ahamad said the turtle's return showed that Rantau Abang was being made a turtle nesting ground once again, and he hoped for more during the next possible nesting period between August 15 and 20.

The Puteri Rantau Abang, which was hatched in the area in 1978 and marked on its shell and left flipper, returned at a weight of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds), measuring 1.5 metres (five feet) in length and 1.16 metres wide.

It was released back into the sea on Thursday, carrying a satellite transmitter which will help conservationists track turtle migration patterns.

"We expect Puteri Rantau Abang to head for Vietnam and Japan before heading to the Pacific," Ahamad said, adding that the turtle was also expected to travel to Indonesian waters and as far as New Zealand before returning to Malaysia.

Leatherback turtles have been around for the past 75 million years, surviving cycles of near extinction. Terengganu was the only place in Malaysia where leatherbacks nested.

In the 1950s, up to 10,000 female turtles struggled up the beach to lay their eggs each year, but by 1984 the number had fallen to 800 and in 2006 only five nests were found from two turtles, without any hatchlings emerging.

Apart from the leatherbacks, green turtles have also made a return to Malaysian beaches in recent weeks, but experts warned that the species is still headed for oblivion if habitat loss is not stopped.

Rare Malayan box turtles get new homes at Bristol zoo

The reptiles are believed to have been captured in the wild in south-east Asia.

Five rare turtles that were confiscated from smugglers in Hong Kong have been rehomed at Bristol Zoo.

The Malayan box turtles were bound for China to be sold for their meat, used as pets or used in traditional medicine.

The creatures were some of 150 turtles of various species that were seized by customs officials in Hong Kong.

The turtles, which are in quarantine, are believed to have been captured in the wild in south-east Asia.

The customs officials worked with the Turtle Survival Alliance to find them new homes.

'Vulnerable species'

Tim Skelton, Bristol Zoo's curator of reptiles and amphibians, said: "We are pleased to be able to offer a safe new home for these turtles, which were likely to have otherwise been sold and killed.

"Exact information about them, such as their age, is not known.

"They could be anywhere between 10 and 30 years old, but we hope to breed them to help boost the captive population of this vulnerable species, as well as to highlight the plight of all south-east Asian turtle species."

Malayan box turtles, which usually live on the edge of swamps, streams or ponds, have been classified as 'vulnerable' on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

They are threatened by the destruction of their habitat, and hunters.

A zoo spokesman said the five animal would join three other Malayan box turtles that had also been seized by customs officials 10 years ago.

More Sea Turtles Landing in Cherating

KUANTAN: Turtle conservation in Cherating has shown positive results as more landings are recorded every year and about half the number are females hatched at the sanctuary.

Efforts taken by the authorities since 1980s have increased the landings from about 100 in the late 1990s to 252 last year.

To date, 252,184 turtle hatchlings have been released at the Cherating Turtle Sanctuary and 18,596 were hatched last year.

State Fisheries Department director Datuk Mohamad Mat Saman said this was a significant achievement for the turtle sanctuary as it had maintained an average of 260 turtle landings per year for the past 10 years.

He added that a sanctuary in Tioman was also collecting and hatching about 6,000 turtle eggs every year.

Almost all the turtles that land in Cherating comprise the agar species (green turtle) while in Tioman, 60 per cent consist of green turtles. The remaining are penyu karah or hawksbill turtles.


"We receive support from the locals, especially fishermen and their families, who help collect turtle eggs and send them to the sanctuaries," Mohamad said.

He was speaking after the launch of a turtle awareness programme by Kuantan district officer Datuk Mariam Ismail at the Cherating Turtle Sanctuary near here yesterday. Present were Turtle and Marine Ecosystem Centre (Tumec) head Syed Abdullah Syed Abdul Kadir and AquaWalk Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Simon Fong.

Mohamad said the number of dead turtles found in the state had dropped to two last year compared with 15 in 1999. Although there was no report of turtle eggs being sold in the state, he said the department had proposed a fine of RM500 as a deterrent.


At the event, four young green turtles were released into the sea, with one of them fixed with a satellite telemetry tracking device. The turtles were raised at the Aquaria KLCC after they were hatched at the turtle sanctuary in Cherating four years ago.

AquaWalk had donated the satellite tracking system while Tumec will bear the cost of the satellite connection service.

Green turtles return to Malaysia but future bleak

KUALA LUMPUR — Green turtles are returning to Malaysia in their hundreds after being nearly wiped out, but experts warned Thursday that the species is still headed for oblivion if habitat loss is not stopped.

Thousands of turtles used to land every year on Malaysian beaches, but their numbers plummeted in the 1980s due to rampant coastal development and the plundering of eggs from their sandy nests.

However, landings have increased in the past few years in the eastern resort strip of Cherating, and some 350 -- mostly green turtles but also some hawksbills -- now arrive there each year, officials said.

Mohamad Mat Saman, fisheries department director in central Pahang state, said that initiatives such as new hatcheries and efforts to promote conservation had led to the improvement.

"This year up until June we had 200 turtles coming to lay their eggs," he told AFP.

"About 70 percent of them had previously landed in Cherating and we believe others were born here. All turtles which land are tagged."

"We received support from the locals and fishermen who collect turtle eggs and hand them to the sanctuary," he said.

Mohamad said that authorities have proposed introducing a new law to ban turtle egg consumption in Pahang state by the end of this year.

Turtle nesting sites are dotted along peninsular Malaysia's east coast, but the leatherbacks which were once common have now virtually disappeared.

Elizabeth John from conservation group Traffic said that while some turtle populations now appear stable, their numbers have dropped dramatically since the 1970s.

"Habitat loss is a major threat to green turtles and all other marine turtles that nest on Malaysian beaches. Infrastructure development along the coast near key nesting sites has impacted populations," she said.

"The local trade and consumption of turtle eggs is another threat to green turtles," she added.

John said green turtles are facing "the double whammy of losing their homes and their young", much as leatherback turtles did during the past few decades.

"It's heartening to see green turtles still returning to nest on Malaysian shores, but if we fail to address the threats that face them, we will be pushing them go down the same path towards destruction," she said.

Gulf Coast turtle hatchlings released on Florida's east coast

Playalinda Beach, Titusville, Florida (CNN) -- One-day-old loggerhead turtles were set free adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center overnight, scurrying down a beach in the cover of darkness to begin their lives.

The baby turtles were hatched at a space center facility after being transferred from the beaches in the Florida Panhandle and Alabama.

Biologists believed 700 to 800 turtle nests were in jeopardy of perishing, with BP's oil lurking offshore.

"We would have 100 percent mortality if the hatchlings were not able to be translocated," said Jeff Trandahl of the Fish and Wildlife Foundation. "We are looking at relocating 70,000 to 80,000 turtle eggs."

Biologists have begun digging up nests and shipping them, courtesy of FedEx, to a large facility at the space center. So far, 13,000 eggs have arrived, and 2,600 hatchlings have been released.

The eggs are faring better than those in nature, project manager Jane Provancha said. More than 80 percent of the hatchlings have hatched.

Tom Strickland, assistant interior secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, witnessed the removal of the eggs and the release of the turtles.

"Out of all the tragedies and the difficulty of the oil spill, there are great stories," Strickland said.

Biologists will continue to remove, ship and release the baby turtles during the turtle season that runs through September.

Sea turtle eggs found at Mie beach

TSU, Mie Pref. (Kyodo) Loggerhead turtle eggs have been found at a beach near a major industrial complex in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, for the first time since 2003, according to a local conservation group.

The 100 or so eggs, which are expected to hatch in about two months, were confirmed at Yoshizaki beach on Tuesday by the sea turtle conservation group in Yokkaichi after it received a report from a man who was fishing at night.

The ocean turtle, which spends most of its life in the sea with only females coming ashore on summer nights to lay eggs, used to come to the coast of Mie Prefecture every year, riding the warm Black Current from the south.

The area around the nest was put under protective netting Wednesday by the group's members so that the eggs are not dug up by animals or humans.

"We want to keep the beach clean and watch the eggs," group leader Kazutomo Mori, 42, said. "We hope to change the image of Yokkaichi from a town of pollution to a town where sea turtles come to."

Predators and Prey, and Catching Turtles

July 30, 2010, 6:33 pm

Predators and Prey, and Catching Turtles

By ELEANOR STERLING

As I said in a previous post, scientists have noted a pattern of a higher ratio of “standing” predator to prey biomass on the atoll, which contrasts with most other marine and terrestrial ecosystems (for example, think about the small ratios of top mammalian predators to grazers on the African savanna). They hypothesize that extremely high rates of production in the prey, including algae; corals, clams and other invertebrates; and smaller fish, supports the predators. This is coupled with high rates at which prey are eaten or otherwise die (called “turnover”). Another possibility is that the larger-bodied fish can live on relatively low amounts of food for many years, even decades, when protected from fishing.

But this focuses on one habitat and one set of species interactions whereas there are many more relationships at Palmyra. Mobile predators, such as sea birds and pelagic sharks, may also be feeding elsewhere, or feeding on food arriving from elsewhere, emphasizing the connections across near-shore, deep-water and terrestrial components of the larger ecosystem. Researchers studying parasites are further showing how complex these food webs are. In a parasite-conscious food web, the larger predators are prey for small-bodied parasites. Graphically, “food chains” are in reality more like a bowl of spaghetti.

Green and hawksbill sea turtles at Palmyra are both predators and prey and thus we are interested in their population size for both basic ecology as well as conservation reasons, but counting turtles is no easy task. During our first several years of research on sea turtles at the Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge we only observed turtles at a distance while we determined how best to tally the population. They do not come ashore here like they do at basking sites in Hawaii or at nesting sites around the world; rather they range across the flats surrounding the islets, in the lagoons, and along the deeper fore-reef areas. They are also quite skittish, possibly because of high predator pressure, and if you approach too closely they zip away as fast as their flippers will carry them.

Eleanor Sterling

Earlier Posts From Palmyra

• In the Middle of Nowhere, Snooping on Sea Turtles
• Why So Many Predators?

Ideally we would do a full census of all the individuals, meaning we count every single individual, but that is next to impossible given their behavior. We therefore count a subset and then extrapolate from this subset to the whole. Researchers have a number of population estimation techniques and we are using several of them for the turtles.

Our main technique relies on a mark-recapture system. But first we have to capture them safely for both the turtles and for us. We received special training from sea turtle specialists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration for care and handling of turtles. We use nets, which entails setting up a short net parallel to shore and waiting for turtles who are heading out to sea, and we capture by hand, which takes excellent hand-eye coordination in order to grasp the front and back of the shell as a turtle whizzes past. Both generally involve a lot of splashing.

Felicity Arengo

A released turtle.

Once we have the turtles in hand, we ensure they are comfortable and kept cool (or warm if it is cold and rainy) and we work quickly to measure and weigh them, check for parasites or other organisms living on the shell or skin of the animals, assess their overall body condition and look for tumors. We paint numbers on the turtles that last for only a few months but are helpful for us to quickly recognize that we have already caught an animal.

We also place small acoustic tags on the shells of some of the turtles. These transmitters send information to a receiver array that the Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium has placed throughout the lagoon areas and let us know when turtles have passed by. We can use this information to understand finer-scale movements of turtles around the atoll. To understand how the sea turtle population at Palmyra connects with turtle populations across the Pacific, an important goal for our funders, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, we use a different kind of tag that sends signals to satellites. We have placed several satellite tags on adult males in the hopes of finding out where they go. We complement the satellite data with genetic analyses, which can help us locate nesting sites for these populations.

When we get back from working with the turtles each day, we still have a full load of work ahead of us, as we need to clean and restock our kits and prepare the samples we have taken, process photos, and enter data into spreadsheets.

In the evenings we also have lots of work reminding us of the outside world, including finishing revisions on a journal article some of us are writing and preparing peer reviews of two manuscripts by other authors.

We have had really great luck this week with the turtles and were able to catch several turtles each day. We finally (and to a great amount of rejoicing) recaptured several animals. Once we get an adequate number of recaptures we can start to measure growth rate in addition to estimating population size, but we still have a tiny ratio of recaptures to captures.

Turtle Feeding Habitats in Malaysia Unaffected By Coral Bleaching - Expert

SANDAKAN, July 27 (Bernama) -- The coral bleaching phenomenon which poses a threat to coral reefs in peninsular Malaysia does not affect the turtle feeding habitats, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu Marine Science Department lecturer Dr Juanita Joseph said today.

This is because green turtles eat seaweed while the hawksbill turtles feed on soft corals and crustaceans, she said.

"Currently, coral bleaching in several islands in the peninsula have not affected turtle-feeding areas," she told Bernama, adding that it would only present a problem if the number of crustaceans in the area declined.

Local dailies reported last month that all islands off Terengganu, including Redang, where turtles feed, were critically affected by the condition.

However, the waters off Sabah were not hit by the phenomenon, especially the popular diving spots of Pulau Sipadan and Pulau Mabul in Semporna which are among Malaysia's turtle feeding areas.

Dr Juanita said turtle feeding areas in Pulau Redang were also unaffected by the bleaching, and there had been an increase in turtle landings although their number was small.

She said the bleaching condition could be attributed to many factors such as pollution, but it could also be caused by increased water temperature which kills a type of algae called Zooxanthellae.

"The green pigment of coral reefs is actually Zooxanthellae. When the algae dies, the coral dies too and its colour changes to white.

"The coral reef ecosystem is a productive one and when the coral dies, all other organisms in the area will be affected, especially fish," she said.

Dr Juanita said coral bleaching was a frequently occurring phenomenon but scientists had yet to figure out how to overcome the problem.

She said dead corals would usually recover but required a long period of time to return to its normal state.

-- BERNAMA