Park breeds turtles, releases them to natural habitat

FIFTEEN pig-nosed turtles from the Port Moresby Nature Park have been released into an estuary of the Kikori River in Gulf, a statement from the Nature Park says.
The turtles made the trip from the Nature Park to Gulf on a plane then travelled by boat to the estuary of the river.
“In 2015, the Nature Park launched a number of animal-breeding and research programmes, including the commitment to take 47 pig-nosed turtle hatchlings from the Kikori Delta region to study the growth rate of the little-studied species,” the statement said.
The research project is being done in partnership with the University of Canberra and the Piku Biodiversity Network, sponsored by ExxonMobil PNG.
The “head-start” programme is the first attempted initiative to study these species, with the focus on determining the turtles’ growth rates.
The Nature Park’s wildlife department measured weekly the shell width and weight of each.
The wild, newly-hatched turtles have about a one per cent chance of survival to reach adulthood.
“The pig-nosed turtles had been safely living and growing in the Nature Park free from predators until they have reached a size large enough to have a better chance of survival from one percent at birth to now up to 30 percent.
They will also be radio-tagged and tracked to monitor their movements.