Friday 10th July
This morning, we were up bright and early, breakfasted, bags packed, and out of the hotel by 08:30 ready to catch our island transfer at 09:00.
Just off the east coast from Sandakan lays a group of three small islands (Pulau Selingaan, Pulau Gulisaan and Pulau Bakkungan Kechil), now referred to as the Turtle Islands Park for the reason that they have beaches favourable to sea turtles (remember the sea turtles from Finding Nemo? Yep, just like them!). Today, there is a fantastic conservation program in place across the 3 islands. Tourists are shipped in each morning, given the afternoon as free time, and then from 18:30, the beach is off limits until 06:30 the next day.
After dinner, we were shown a short documentary about sea turtles. After that, we were told we would have to sit in the dining room until one of the Park Rangers came and announced that a turtle had come ashore to nest. We were advised that that could be as early as 20:00 or as late as 23:00! Thankfully, we got the summons at 20:30. We all headed off down toward the beach, following the Ranger…
What happens with the sea turtles is that the female will come ashore at night when there are less predators around, dig a hole with her rear flippers, and drop her eggs. A single female can lay as many as 150 eggs in one go! This is evolutionary biology at work… turtles have about a 2% survival rate. Eggs get eaten by the lizards on the island, baby turtles are then at risk of being eaten by seagulls after they hatch (or by the lizards again… we sadly saw one turtle hatchling end this way mid-afternoon) and are making their first dash to the ocean, being eaten by any number of natural predators once they reach the ocean, by getting inadvertently caught in fishing nets, by being hit by boat propellers…. seriously, the odds are truly stacked against them.
You might think that as part of the conservation effort, they would remove the lizards from the island, but the idea is not to mess with the natural order of things TOO much.
As the female is laying her eggs, she goes into a trance where she is pretty much impervious to light and sound. This enabled us to stand around her in a circle, in the dark with torches off, while the Ranger shone a torch underneath her so we could witness her laying the eggs. After the turtle has finished laying and headed back to sea, the Rangers collect SOME of the eggs and transport them to a hatchery on the island. Here, they are catalogued, buried in the sand, and a wire barricade is placed over them to prevent the lizards from getting to them.
Through the day, eggs that have been allowed to develop in situe, hatch, and the baby turtles flee for the ocean. We saw a couple make it to the water during the afternoon, but also, as previously mentioned, we saw one get caught by a lizard. Such is the circle of life, I guess.
Then, after we had observed the female laying her eggs, we went to a different section of the beach where the Rangers released 45 baby turtles (from the hatchery) into the ocean. This gave everyone a chance to see the new born turtles.
The amazing thing about these creatures is that they reach sexual maturity anytime between 15 and 30 years of age, and they have lifespans of around 150 years. When they flee to the ocean as newborns, and assuming they survive all the aforementioned threats, little is known about them until the females come back to the VERY SAME BEACH from which they hatched, to lay their own eggs! There, they are tagged so that the Park Rangers can keep a track of them and record their movements. After a pregnancy, the females will have at least a 2 year break before falling pregnant again.
After seeing the newborn hatchlings heading off for their first swim, we retired for the night.
Tomorrow morning, it’s up at 06:30 for breakfast and a 07:00 departure back to Sandakan.
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