Turtles galore

Turtle nesting at TRACC is commonplace,  with a nest almost every week through the year, there is a great spectacle of National Geographic proportions happening all the time. This year 2016, we have had nesting turtles since January and yesterday (22-09-2016) in a stroke of good fortune, we had two females emerge to nest within a few metres and a few minutes of each other.

Moving 100+kg across the sand on your belly is hard work.

  Standing within metres of a nesting female as she scrabbles through the bushes puts wild life and wild places into perspective.  For me, its amazing that all TRACC staff and volunteers can get up close to real endangered species that have been on the planet for millions of years.  These are real experiences of life on the planet - upclose and personal, rather than images carried by the internet to millions of people.


A short distance down the beach from the TRACC camp and it is easy to imagine that Sir David Attenborough is also on the beach - talking to the cameras that will carry the images of prehistoric reptiles across the world.

Chambering involves digging with the back flippers.

Volunteers and students who are seeing these amazing creatures for the first few times are always suitably impressed but the excitement for the staff varies in intensity depending on how much sand the turtle throws.  It is always a balance, shower at the end of a diving  day, or wait to shower after being covered in sand and turtle mucus.  There is still a great sense of achievement as the new turtle nest is dug in the hatchery where the eggs will be safe until the hatchlings are released to run down the sand to the sea.

Collecting the eggs into the bucket

We are so lucky to have these opportunities,  a few years ago getting to Pom Pom Island and turtle nesting beaches was a logistical nightmare.  Now transport and access is easy, our role is to balance the needs of the turtles so that tourism and development actually benefits these wonderful reptiles.

A job well done, eggs safely into the hatchery. 

 More

Turtle Hatching on Pom Pom | TRACC Borneo Volunteers

 

 

Turtle Nesting on Pom Pom Island | TRACC Borneo Volunteers

 

A typical day as a turtle volunteer | TRACC Borneo Volunteers

 

 

 

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If you want to help with any marine conservation activity please check out our website tracc.org or e-mail iinfo@tracc-borneo.org

For updates check out our facebook, twitter or Google +

Turtle, shark or Reef conservation would not be possible without the generous financial support. We thank GEF/SPG for Malaysia who are helping our community activities, and coralreefcare.com who generously provide materials to build more reefs.   

If visits to Tracc are not possible then please help with financial support and follow our projects on facebook

Mataking exploration

Yesterday we travelled to Mataking and dived on the far side of the islands, it was a turtle mecca there, we saw 6-7 before we even started the dive, however the number of fish was much lower than at Pom Pom and overall the dive was no less entertaining than most dive at Pom Pom.



A few days ago in the afternoon we did a fish survey from the Pom Pom Northtip jetty where I saw my first Hawksbill of this trip, 4 Green Turtles and a meter long Bumphead parrot fish hiding under a large coral. 

The marine life is great and so many turtles.

Paul Fadden Aug 2016

Turtle Hatching on Pom Pom

Photo by Lizz Fitt

Hatchling sea turtles smaller than the palm of my hand, and cute enough to warm even the stormiest of hearts, tumble onto the beach. A line is drawn in the sand to keep spectators at a distance, and the hatchlings scurry down the beach attracted to the ocean by the light of the setting sun.  These tiny turtles are protected from the natural predators of land by our presence and poachers through our nightly turtle walks and eggs collection. Yet, even with our protection, the onset of a sea turtles life is fraught with obstacles and dangers. The short stretch of beach leading to the sea is difficult to navigate, footprints present themselves like craters to the hatchling, some of whom must momentarily rest before they struggle up what must be a mighty staircase to their small selves.

Once reaching the water their weight will reduce and the physical struggles of a creature made for the sea moving on land will

Photo by Lizz Fitt

diminish, but the danger of the ocean and its predators increases– so much so that only 1 in 1000 hatchling turtles will reach sexual maturity. Just offshore ocean predators wait, even from the beach a barracuda is seen lurking in the shallows.

The first task of a hatchling sea turtle is to find a raft of seaweed, which will provide a degree of shelter from harsh ocean conditions, and under which it can hide from predators. This refuge-giving raft also provides the fresh hatchlings a chance to rest and makes it easier for the little turtle to reach the oxygen it needs above the surface of the ocean. If it finds enough cover and has enough luck, baby sea turtles will float with the current in their seaweed raft feeding on smaller crustaceans and fish until the age of 5 or 6 and it is big enough to handle the open ocean. However, even at this adolescent stage the turtles are still small, roughly the size of a dinner plate, and subject to much predation. But if they survive the odds, Sea Turtles instinctively return to the beach on which they hatched when they reach sexual maturity at 35.

Photo by Lizz Fitt

Female turtles lay anywhere between roughly 250 - 700 eggs each of their season, meaning they will produce roughly 4 – 8 offspring throughout their life if they die by old age. For Pom Pom, with our many nesting turtles, and the many nests they lay, we estimate about 2000 eggs are laid each season – and we hope two more turtles from this seasons nesting will return to lay and fertilize eggs and make more hatchlings in 35 years.

We cannot protect out hatchlings from the perils of the ocean, but we can protect the eggs from the danger of poaching, and offer the hatchlings a chance to test their luck and survival in the ocean.

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If you want to help with any marine conservation activity, please 
check our website http://tracc.org or e-mail info@tracc-borneo.org 

For more updates on TRACC check out our Facebook, Twitter or Google +

More Marine conservation projects

Reef conservation would not be possible without generous financial support from

GEF /SGP for Malaysia who are helping our community activities and coralreefcare.com who generously provided materials to build the new reefs.

If visits to Tracc are not possible then please help with financial support and follow their projects on Facebook.

Artificial Reef Part 2 - Reef Stability and Recycling

I Heart Artificial Reef

296 bottle reefs line TRACC’s reef crest, plus 300 or so at the ribbon reef and another 60 are spattered around the island, at an average of 5 glass bottles per artificial reef, this means about 3280 glass bottles have been recycled as artificial reef material, not including the other bottle reefs used as building blocks in other structures. Add another 50 or 60 recycled tires, the plastic crate reefs, and about 10 HDPE structures such as the Igloos, Tipis, and the Swim through, and you’ve got a proverbial boatload of largely recycled material creating homes and habitats for sea creatures to thrive.

A Turtle Cruising Along some Bottle Reefs

However, the artificial reefs not only provide different niches of habitat and attract fantastic biodiversity, they also provide structural integrity to the island ecosystem.  A healthy reef crest stabilizes the slope of the reef, which in turn prevents erosion.  Structural stabilization of the reef slope is important because it prevents the coral rubble from sliding down thus minimizing the available habitat of the shallow intertidal zone and lagoon, which is important for larval fish, as well as many other shallow water loving creatures – such as the blue ringed octopus. Additionally, it prevents erosion of the beach through causing the waves to break on the reef crest before they reach the beach, minimizing the overall erosion of the island.

Coral Colonizing the Bottle

Long term consequences of a reef crest that is not stabilized include an altered ecosystem resulting from the loss of the beach surrounding Pom Pom Island. Without beach, there is no place for the rather particular turtles who prefer to come to the same beach throughout their whole very long life to nest. Without a place to nest, there is a big possibility turtle populations’ could plummet. As a keystone species, turtles have a high impact on keeping the whole island ecosystem balanced. For instance, Hawksbill Turtles eat sponges, because sponges filter nutrients, they are integral to keeping the waters nutrient concentration in balance. Without a balanced population of turtles to keep the sponges at the right level, there could either be too many nutrients resulting in algae blooms, or too little resulting in a lack of food for other sea creatures, and a total shift in the food chain, which would likely result in the loss of not only Turtles, but an overall reduction in biodiversity. 

3000 bottles, some cement, and a bit of hard work – what a difference it can make in helping ensure a holistically healthy ecosystem full of bustling biodiversity and fantastic diving.

Click here for Artificial Reefs Part 1 - Building New Habitats and Homes

Click here for Artificial Reefs Part 3 Bottle Reef Survey's and Sea Creatures
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If you want to help with any marine conservation activity, please 
check our website http://tracc.org or e-mail info@tracc-borneo.org 

For more updates on TRACC check out our Facebook, Twitter or Google +

More Marine conservation projects

Reef conservation would not be possible without generous financial support from

GEF /SGP for Malaysia who are helping our community activities
and coralreefcare.com who generously provided materials to build the new reefs.

If visits to Tracc are not possible then please help with financial support and follow their projects on Facebook.

Turtle Nesting on Pom Pom Island

The Return to the Ocean

This week, the first turtle of the season clambered onto the beach just outside of TRACC to lay her many eggs. As we sat in the communal area, number 4, waiting for dinner we were alerted to unusual activity by the steady bark of the camp dog Monsoon. Curious about the barking Paul went out to check out the scene, triumphantly returning with news of turtle tracks just up the beach. Equipped with red headlamps and the knowledge of Professor Steve, the camp went out to find a large, old and impressive green turtle well hidden beneath the spiky underbrush.

Turtles are aged through the length of the shell, with about 1-2 cm equaling 1 year, this one measuring 1 meter from shell tip to tip was a little less then 100 years old when accounting for her initial 2-4 cm hatchling shell.

Oblivious, as most sea creatures are to red and green light as they have no need to distinguish between it at the depths they spend most of their lives where those colors don’t reach, we watched her under the red glow of a headlamp. The initial hole was dug with the front flippers with much crashing of undergrowth. The next stage was chambering where she dug a smaller hole at the bottom of the pit.  Steadily she used one rear flipper then another rocking her body to and fro to dig her hole into the sand. She folded in the edges of her hind flippers to create a perfect bowl shaped shovel and continued the hard work of making a deeper nest. When she could no longer reach the bottom of her egg chamber, she moved to position her hind flippers over the hole.

Laying Eggs in the Underbrush

It’s usual for a turtle to lay between 80 and 100 eggs, 3-7 times each year and the range is thought to be between about 60 and 120. When satisfied with its size and depth, she began to lay her approximate 140 eggs in what we believe to be her first nest of the season.

After laying her eggs she filled her nest with sand to cover and incubate the eggs, and then tossed

sand and brush over the nest with her front flippers, to hide the nest. Becoming tired, she slowed more often to rest during this process, providing a chance for the A-level marine science students to practice some of their data collection skills and measure the turtles shell height and width – the standard measurements used to determine size and age. The resting period of our turtle friend also gave the team from Pom Pom resort, which has the official privilege to gather and safely incubate the eggs away from the danger of poachers and natural scavengers, a chance to begin collecting the eggs.

A-Level Students Basil and Graeme

Soon after she was satisfied her nest was safely hidden she turned around in the sandy underbrush, clumsy with her huge weight on land, and headed back to the ocean. Surprisingly quickly and steadily she made her way down the beach, shortened by the high tide she prefers for nesting, and entered to water.

Its easy to imagine she must now be relieved to be back in the ocean where her 100 Land kilograms are lightened to what feels like 2, and she can gracefully and swiftly move through her underwater home. In about 2 weeks she will pick another evening high tide to revisit the beach within about 50 meters of her first nest and lay another nest of eggs. For now, her eggs lay safely protected and incubating on Pom Pom Island, and in about 60 days we will have the privilege of witnessing the hatchlings finding their way back into their watery home.  

More about the turtles of Pom Pom

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