“Over three nights, we witnessed 44 nests being made, 4434 eggs being laid, helped to transfer all of these eggs to the nearby hatchery, and released 1995 hatchlings to sea”, said Michael Scotton of SALCO.

“It is estimated that only one hatchling in every 1000 eggs survives to adulthood, so our team’s efforts may have resulted in only 2 turtles being added to the turtle population”, said Michael Scotton. Hence, the importance and significance of conserving these graceful sea turtles which are known to produce eggs once in every 4 or 5 years, sometimes traveling up to 3000 km to lay eggs on the beach of its own birth.

Pulau Talang-Talang Besar and neighbouring Pulau Talang-Talang Kecil off Sematan, along with Pulau Satang Besar and Satang Kecil near to Santubong, are known as the ‘Turtle Islands’. Combined, these four islands account for 95 per cent of all turtle landings in Sarawak. Some turtle landings have also been spotted at Similajau National Park. Sarawak’s first marine national park, Talang-Satang, was established with the aim of conserving Sarawak’s marine turtle population.

“Staying up all night was an exciting experience. After a patient wait, it was rewarding to see the mother turtles make their way up to the shore. Once the eggs were laid and the mother turtles had gone back to sea, we had only two hours to dig about 60 cm into the sand to carefully take out the hundreds of delicate eggs and transfer them to the hatchery. For the new hatchlings, we had to release them out to sea at night, in order to increase their rate of survival from predators such as birds, monitor lizards, rats, Ghost crabs and fish”, explained SALCO’s Ryan Ng.

The 4 day/3 night expedition to the Turtle Islands by SALCO (Ryan Ng, Michael Scotton and Julia Chua) and members from MNS Miri Branch from 3 – 6 August 2009 was part of a programme run by the Sarawak Forestry Corporation. Officially known as the Sea Turtle Adoption Programme, the innovative conservation programme seeks and encourages the public to help save these endangered species. Volunteers on the programme do beach patrols, monitor turtle nesting activities, tag and measure turtles, transfer eggs to the hatchery, release hatchlings and assist in data recording. For more information on the Sea Turtle Adoption programme, log on to http://seaturtle.sarawakforest.com.

“Working in harmony with the environment is very important to SALCO, and our team was very keen to learn more about these amazing creatures,” said Michael Scotton.

SALCO further hopes to build on the experience gained from the expedition to work with MNS and Sarawak Forestry Corporation to develop future turtle conservation programme for Similajau National Park.

At the end of the expedition, the SALCO and MNS teams proudly adopted one turtle and nest each. Ryan named his turtle ToZi ToSun (which means ‘many children and grandchildren’ in Mandarin). Michael’s turtle is called Urungi-Tai (which means ‘sea navigator’ in the Maori language) while Julia’s turtle is called Sarah.