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Small steps key to
saving giant turtles
KUALA LUMPUR: Small and inexpensive steps could go a long
way towards rescuing the Western Pacific’s dwindling population of
giant sea turtles.
At a turtle crisis conference, currently being held in Malaysia,
conservation biologist Peter Dutton urged authorities to do more
to preserve the state of leatherback turtles’ nesting beaches to
ensure eggs are hatched.
“The main issue here is there are eggs that are being laid but for
some reason, they are not hatching,” said Peter Dutton, leader of
the marine turtle research programme at the United States National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Once-thriving
“But there are some relatively cheap things that can be done to
get the leatherbacks back on the road to growing their
population,” he said.
“The population recovers very rapidly in the period of 25 to 30
years,” Dutton said in a telephone interview from Malaysia’s
eastern Terengganu state, where NOAA is holding a four-day
conference to develop a long-term conservation plan for
leatherbacks in the region.
Leatherbacks were once a star attraction in Terengganu, where they
frequently nested. None have been sighted in the last few years
and overfishing, poaching and pollution have been blamed for
killing them.
Leatherbacks are the world’s largest turtles and have been around
for the past 75 million years, going through cycles of
near-extinction and re-colonisation. According to data from the
agencies organising the meeting, the number of nesting leatherback
turtles in the Western Pacific region has plummeted to 5,000 from
a once-thriving population of 91,000 in the 1980s.
Nesting females strangled
Dutton said some of the biggest threats could be easily avoided,
for example by blocking the use of fishing nets at nesting areas
because they could strangle females coming ashore to nest and
prevent baby turtles from safely leaving. He said the focus was
now on protecting female turtles and nesting beaches in
Indonesia’s Papua, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Malaysia.
Particularly in Indonesia’s Papua “the leatherback population has
not collapsed,” which leaves time for conservation efforts, he
said.
About 1,000 female leatherbacks nest annually in Papua, laying up
to 9,000 eggs and making it “biologically viable” to grow the
population, he said. “The challenge here is to protect and
increase hatchlings.”
But Dutton said a commitment by governments and other agencies to
funding was vital for ensuring the success of conservation
projects. To date, funding has largely been dependent on the U.S.
or private donations.
Cloning question
Malaysian scientists have said cloning leatherbacks could be a
method of saving them, according to local press reports. But
Dutton rejected the suggestion that turtles could be cloned.
“Instead of cloning, Malaysia could take the lead in studying
methods to ensure eggs that are laid produce hatchlings,” he said.
“I hope the Malaysian government will look at some of the more
immediately solvable issues and take the lead in developing new
hatchery techniques.”
The conference ends today, when a long-term plan aimed at securing
reliable funding from governments and other agencies is expected
to be unveiled.
 
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