Turtle nesting and release

A relative had organised for us to visit one of two turtle hatcheries accessible to Kuching. We are going to Pulau Satang Besar, as opposed to Talang-Talang (which is expensive and available to those doing a 4 day volunteering).

We set off at 0830, grabbed some breakfast before driving to Telaga Air to meet the boat man. The drive was about 30 minutes. At Telaga Air, we parked the car in someone’s front lawn and paid a token fee.

Rosli, our boat man met us and he summoned Abang Abol who collected the balance of the travel arrangements (total RM560 for 3 pax, boat and 1 night stay). The island is owned by Abang Abol’s extended family and land for the conservation (managed by Sarawak Forestry) is leased from the family.

The boat ride from the Telaga Air took us out the river mouth into the open sea. We passed Bird Island (where there were some birds) before arriving at Satang Besar. We could also see Satang Kecil. Both islands are rocky and forested except that Satang Besar had a small stretch of beach.

We unloaded, explored briefly before resting and chatting. Last night, there had been four turtle landings. We were hopeful that we would see something. A little later, I made a salad of corn, tuna, tomatoes and cucumber for lunch. The kitchen was basic but well equipped.

We swam in the sea in the late afternoon, chatting to some day-trippers. We had to be off the beach by 1700 to avoid scaring off turtles surveying for landing areas, but that wasn’t a problem.

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I found the rangers and chatted to them. Apart from the island caretaker and our boatman, the rangers were the only people on the island. Alfonsus spoke good English and together with Ibrahim who spoke mainly Malay, I got a good insight into turtle life and the life of a turtle ranger. They happily agreed to wake us up in case of a landing. They only wake guests up once the turtles start laying. Once laying begins, the turtle continues despite any human activity but anytime before that, they can be quite easily scared off.

We made a dinner of instant noodles and retired at 2000. I was woken up by talking at 2200. The ranger had woken my brother next door. We were lucky to get such an early landing as it could have been a really interrupted night with a landing at 0200 for example.

A green turtle had conveniently nested just in front of the hatchery and was actively popping out her eggs The ranger also had a bucket with some freshly hatched young ones. He took us to the water’s edge and we released them on to the sand and allowed them to crawl into the water; research suggests that you should not release them directly into the water as it doesn’t give them the same location memory for coming back during adulthood.

We returned to the nesting green turtle which was finishing up. The rangers tagged it, measured it (shell of 1m along the long side), and then scraped barnacles off its head. At this stage, such interferences doesn’t put the turtle off and we were even allowed flash photography.

The turtle concealed its eggs and moved on, continuing with its concealing efforts along the way. I guess this made it more difficult to where exactly the nest was. As it made it’s way into the sea, the rangers removed and counted the eggs (92 in total) and transferred them into the enclosed hatchery to protect them from rodents and monitor lizards.That ended a good night seeing two stages of the turtle life cycle. I know some people had managed to see seven turtles in one night. But in those situations the rangers would be too busy to explain anything. We are very satisfied with what we had seen.

The nesting season here is May to September. Nestings are more reliable from June onwards. However July is the earliest month the rangers would recommend as it gives a chance of seeing hatchlings and releasing them into the water (because the eggs take 2 months to hatch). About less than 10 hatchlings survive and becomes adults. It’s a tough world out there for the little turtles.

A few snippets about the turtles … the green turtles are the second largest turtles after the leatherback.  It isn’t green but the fat inside is usually green.  Other species found here are the Hawksbill and the Olive Ridley.