Hatcheries give young turtles better start in life

Hatcheries give young turtles better start in life

By Ida Indawati Khouw

JAKARTA (JP): No safe passage, no mother to provide
protection ... a baby sea turtle crawls from its nest to the sea
across a minefield of danger, as birds scour the beach for food.

Parental supervision is rare in reptiles and virtually absent
in turtles. Once laid in a pit dug above high tide level, turtle
eggs -- about 100 -- are left alone.

When the turtle hatchling claws its way to the surface, 40
days to 60 days later, its only protection is in numbers, which
means the eggs always hatch in unison.

But only a handful of baby turtles make it to the sea, and
some never get to start the journey, but are taken from the nest
by predators, which include humans.

The turtle hatching and rearing camp on Pramuka Island in the
Thousand Island Marine National Park, North Jakarta, has been set
up to give young turtles a better start in life.

One of several turtle camps works to boost the number of young
hawksbill turtles, which are the most prevalent in the national
park.

The hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata), which is the smallest
of the sea turtles, has a carapace length of 70 cm to 90 cm and
can be recognized by its overlapping plates.

Dr. Col Limpus, a turtle expert from Australia's Department of
Environment, who visited the camp recently, said turtle hatching
and rearing centers are rare.

"It's appropriate for Indonesia to have one because six of the
seven turtle species in the world are found here," he said.

The main activity of the 800-square-meter camp is to hatch,
rear, tag and release hawksbills. The process starts with camp
workers collecting turtle eggs from several islands of the
national park.

The camp's vice manager, Umikalsum Boer, said that two decades
ago, many of the sandy beaches of the 108 islands around the park
were perfect nesting grounds for hawksbills.

"Since then, people have occupied the islands and their
presence interferes with nesting. Only a few islands are left as
turtle nesting grounds," she said.

Using large plastic buckets, camp staff collect eggs from
beaches and take them to the hatching building, where the eggs,
still in the buckets, are buried in sand.

Umikalsum said that when the turtles hatch, about half of the
survivors are released immediately and the other half are taken
to the rearing building and placed in 10 tanks.

"We have to release half because the capacity of the tanks is
limited," she said. The tanks measure 1.5 meters by two meters
and hold up to 100 hatchlings up to one month old.

The retained baby turtles are fed twice a day with chopped
coral fish, which have had their scales and bones removed. "We
have to prepare about 10 kilograms of chopped fish daily,"
Umikalsum said.

The rearing tanks are kept filled with sea water, which is
circulated continuously to maintain a natural environment. Camp
workers change the water every two days, after they clean the
tanks.

Umikalsum said that the cleaning is required to prevent the
turtles from contracting white fungus, which is the biggest
potential problem in the rearing process.

"White fungus encourages turtles to bite each other, leading
to damage of flippers and eyes. This also happens in the wild,"
she said.

Umikalsum said that after one month, half of the retained
hatchlings are released, so that the other half can have more
space. More are released after three months and six months.

Camp workers measure the size and weight of the growing
turtles regularly.

After three months, the turtles are tagged and released. The
tags enable researchers to study the distribution of the released
turtles.

Up until last October, the camp had hatched 2,533 hawksbills
and released 1,380 hatchlings.

According to Col Limpus, many of the hatchlings will
eventually find their way "home" to the camp because, at the time
of hatching, the baby turtles are imprinted with information
about where they were born.

Limpus said the turtle's brain is able to detect the earth's
magnetic field and this makes it possible for the turtle to find
its way back.

The operational costs of the turtle camp are provided by a
Japan-based organization to the Directorate General of Forest
Protection and Nature Conservation, which is responsible for
running the institution.