Volunteers and rangers take a closer look at Kartini as it lays its eggs. — Bernama photos
Sabariah can be spotted at the beach as early as 3am.
KUALA TERENGGANU: The time was 8.40pm and it was pitch dark at Redang Island’s Pantai Chagar Hutang.
The beach was damp as there had been a steady drizzle since dusk.
Amidst the hushed atmosphere, two Green turtles emerged from the South China Sea and slowly ambled up the beach. These endangered reptiles only had one thing in mind – to find a safe spot to lay their eggs.
Some sections of the beach were rock-strewn but, fortunately, it did not hamper the turtles from landing there.
It was probably the quietness and stillness that attracted them to Pantai Chagar Hutang as they must have felt safe from predators.
The day these two Green turtles – nicknamed Sabariah and Kartini – turned up at Pulau Redang, this writer was also there together with a group of journalists and television cameramen from the Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama) and Bernama News Channel (BNC).
They were there on the invitation of Universiti Malaysia Terengganu’s (UMT) Sea Turtle Research Unit (Seatru) to do a series of documentaries on the turtles, among other things.
Seatru runs a research station at Pantai Chagar Hutang to carry out conservation-oriented research on sea turtles, as well as educate undergraduates and school children and the public at large on the importance of conserving the various turtle species, some of which are on the brink of extinction.
Wait for coast to be clear
Pantai Chagar Hutang is a popular spot for turtle landings and at times more than a thousand nests have been recorded per year, making it Peninsular Malaysia’s top beach for turtle landings, nesting and egg laying.
Seatru officials told Bernama that although the female turtles usually land at night, the process of selecting the right landing spot would start as early as 3pm.
They would, apparently, swim and frolic around the bay near the beach and would look for food while ‘keeping an eye’ on the beach where they intend to lay their eggs.
Seatru head Dr Mohd Uzair Rusli, who is also a lecturer at UMT’s Centre for Marine Science and Environmental Studies, said the females would look out for boats and signs of human activities around the beach area. Should there be anything to arouse their suspicion, they would postpone their landing until the coast is literally clear.
At Pantai Chagar Hutang, turtle landings begin as early as 6pm and can go on until late at night.
Nesting
Back to the tale of Sabariah and Kartini, while our group closely observed the two in the thick of nesting and laying their eggs from a safe distance, Mohd Uzair said this was the time when the reptiles were highly sensitive and the presence of any light, sound or human activity would disturb them.
Seatru rangers and volunteers, who are there to study the turtles, use torches that emit red-coloured light to find their way around in the dark as the eyes of the reptiles are not sensitive to red colour.
Should a nesting turtle feel disturbed, it would immediately call off its plan to lay eggs and scramble back to the sea.
In the case of Sabariah and Kartini, they crawled for about 350 metres on the beach looking for an ideal place to lay their eggs.
“They don’t look for any specific place for nesting. Some turtles choose open beaches, some build their nests under a tree or near some bushes… each turtle has its own taste,” commented Mohd Uzair, adding that usually, it would take them 15 to 20 minutes to find the perfect location.
This writer observed that although Sabariah and Kartini, both estimated to be 35 years old, had landed at the same spot on the beach at the same time, they chose to lay their eggs at different locations.
Sabariah’s choice was a secluded place under the shade of a tree while Kartini opted for an open space on the beach where the sand was softer.
Mohd Uzair (centre) briefs volunteers of a conservation programme.
Chambering
After the turtle finds an ideal spot to nest, it would embark on digging a hole in the sand where it planned to lay its eggs.
The first stage of the digging process, explained Mohd Uzair, is known as body pitting, whereby the turtle would use its fore and hind flippers to expertly dig up a hole that was big enough to fit its whole body.
“They can dig holes up to one-foot deep,” he said.
Next comes the chambering process, which refers to the final stage of digging where the turtle uses its hind flippers to dig up a special chamber in the hole to lay its eggs.
The body pitting process takes about half an hour while the chambering stage takes another 20 minutes to complete.
Laying the eggs
Once the nest is ready, the turtle is all set to lay its eggs. Each time it nests, it can lay a clutch of between 50 and 70 eggs with the whole process completed within 10 minutes or so.
Having carried out its important ‘mission’, the turtle would take a short five-minute break before proceeding to the next phase of its operation, namely the camouflaging process.
This writer had the opportunity to watch this first-hand and was left mesmerised.
He observed Kartini as it made use of its hind flippers to shove some sand into the egg chamber.
Next, it started to move forward and as it did so, it used all its four flippers to sweep up the sand and throw it in different directions.
This writer found himself bathed in the sand as he was standing not very far from the nest.
As Kartini edged forward towards the direction of the sea, it kept on flicking sand onto its nest. By the time it was done, the hole was well-covered. No predator would think that there were turtle eggs lying deep underneath.
The whole camouflaging process takes about an hour or, in the words of Mohd Uzair, “until the turtle is fully satisfied playing with the sand”.
As he also pointed out, the eggs should not be buried less than 20 centimetres from the ground surface as fluctuations in the outside temperature could interfere with the incubation process.
“Only if the eggs are more than 20 cm deep will they be able to incubate at a stable temperature,” he said.
He also said that the best time for his researchers to study the condition and health status of the turtles was when they were resting after having laid their eggs.
The researchers would measure the size of the nesting turtles’ shells and check their fore flippers for identification tags. All the nesting turtles, whether new or repeat arrivals, are recorded by Seatru.
Identification tags will be planted on new turtles for future monitoring purposes.
The reptiles’ physical condition would also be examined to check if they have any injuries or have barnacles on their shells. If barnacles are present, they would be removed with a pair of special pliers. If a turtle is found injured, it would be handed over to the Fisheries Department for treatment.
A female turtle can build up to six nests during each nesting season. It can mate with several males and retain the sperm in its body for up to two years before they become eggs.
“If we were to do a DNA analysis on several eggs from the same nest, there’s a possibility that we will detect different ‘fathers’,” added Mohd Uzair. — Bernama