Turtles struggle to lay eggs on remaining nesting beach

Turtles struggle to lay eggs on remaining nesting beach

Text and photos by Mulkan Salmona

Pangumbahan, West Java (JP): Soft sand and towering waves mark the beautiful beach of Pangumbahan in southern West Java, but on New Year's Eve it was bleak and unattractive. However, the crowds visiting the site in the Gunung Batu subdistrict of the Sukabumi regency, were obviously expecting something.

Chatting on the mats they had laid along the beach, this was a different crowd from the usual scientific-looking cluster of researchers and students.

They were mostly domestic tourists, but there were also those on business, the turtle egg business. Dozens of large sea turtles, instead of only eight at other times, pick this night at the end of every year to slowly crawl out of the sea and lay their eggs along the three kilometer beach. Pangumbahan, explained an expert, J.P.Schulz, is one of a few remaining major green sea turtle nesting beaches on Java.

Unfriendly mosquitoes pestered the sleepy crowd which was growing anxious at 11 p.m. Then, a roundish shadow crawled up the beach ever so slowly. Eventually the big green turtle stopped near a tree and started digging.

"Sometimes they don't lay their eggs straight away, but move to a second or third hole to fool their enemies," divulged Tatang, a field employee of a private firm permitted to collect turtle eggs along the beach. He has spent three years looking out for the turtles.

Turtles need a long time to nest, says a marine information and resources officer of the local branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature, R.R.F. Troenoatmodjo.

"They lay over 100 eggs in one nest," he said.

"Listen to their heaving and gasping," he requested, "after their long plodding journey from the sea."

The female turtles looked as if they were crying, but Troenatmodjo said it is nature's way of protecting the turtles' eyes from sea water.

Tatang requested onlookers to sit still while he quietly sneaked up to the beast. The animal moved again and slithered towards another part of the beach, stopped and began digging again.

He beckoned to onlookers to get a closer look and flickered his flashlight towards it for a fraction of a second.

We continued to observe the turtle by only the light of the moon and stars. We could see that she had laid many eggs before covering the hole to resume her tedious shuffle back to the Indian Ocean.

But suddenly flashlights turned on her and dozens of cameras flashed endlessly. Some of the thoughtless onlookers even stood in her way and, ignoring prior warnings, climbed onto the struggling turtle's back as if it were a public bus. All over the beach the scene repeated itself. Visitors kicking, pushing and sitting on the turtles, as if the two hour ordeal of laying eggs was not enough trauma for the majestic sea creatures.

Tatang shooed some of them away and the turtle managed to continue her journey like an amphibian tank. She suddenly slipped into the surf and headed out to sea, oblivious to how few of her hatchlings would follow her.

"It's alright to crowd here, as long as no one shines a light or make a noise," said Tatang, rather fruitlessly.

"If the turtles are disturbed they won't hatch and we'll suffer a great loss," the employee of CV Daya Bakti said.

He and other licensed people guard the coast from groups slipping onto the beach instead of through their gate.

"Everyone who enters through our gate is first briefed about turtle watching," said Tatang, on guard at one of six posts. The briefing consists of reading a typed card by the light of a hurricane lamp.

Pangumbahan, derived from the Sundanese word 'kumbah', means a washing place, and is said to refer to the site where people wash turtle eggs from the sand. The beach is bordered by the Cikangkung river in the north and the Indian Ocean in the south. The river Cipanarikan is on its east side while Cibuaya beach marks its western limit.

Besides green turtles (chelonia mydas), hawksbills (eretmochelys imbricata, locally known as 'penyu sisik' ) and leatherbacks (dermochelys coriacea, locally known as 'penyu belimbing') also nest along the coast.

Locals have been collecting turtle's eggs for over 30 years. Reports from the West Java provincial fishery office note an annual harvest of 2.5 million eggs in the 1950s and 1.25 million in 1964.

Ten years later, the harvest was cut to 509,000 eggs; and the number has kept decreasing. Observers say uncontrolled gathering of the eggs has caused a drop in the population of these ancient mariners worldwide.

In 1981 the regional administration of Sukabumi took limited action and restricted egg hunting to licensed private parties, which is now CV Daya Bakti. Like other firms before it, all reportedly owned by the same Sukabumi-based businessman called Pak Adang by locals, this company is obliged to pay a contract fee to the regency and use part of its haul to breed turtles to preserve the population. The eggs sell for Rp 500 to Rp 600 each.