Scubaism

“Last year, a total of 24,800 turtles were set free and this year we expect to free about 30,000,” said Fisheries Department Resources Rehabilitation Section head Dr Sukarno Wagiman.

“We started releasing the turtles in stages from April, at the Padang Kamunting and Pulau Upeh beaches,” Dr Sukarno told reporters at the Jebsen and Jessen (South-East Asia) “Meet A Need” programme in collaboration with WWF Malaysia here on Tuesday. He added that about 40% of Hawksbill turtle eggs collected in Malacca were found on Pulau Upeh while the remaining 60% was at Padang Kamunting. A total of 108 nestings had been recorded at Padang Kemunting in Alor Gajah as of May this year. Some 388 nestings were recorded last year.

Dr Sukarno also said that a turtle named Puteri Tanjung Dahan released by the Malacca Chief Minister during the Hawksbill Satellite Telemetry project in November last year had already swum more than 300km to the Riau Islands south of Singapore.

The state government is taking back Pulau Upeh — which was sold to national utility company Tenaga Nasional in 2003 — to turn it into a research and management centre for the turtles. “The government wants to protect the island to help preserve the hawksbill turtles,” Malacca chief minister Mohamad Ali Rustam said.