Day 2: Beach Patrolling @ Telaga Papan

Ben & Waqiu had a great experience when they went for the beach patrol, looking out for turtles that come on shore to lay eggs. They described the night as the most memorable one, with ‘Pak Ali’ a ranger who works for WWF (The World Wide Fund for Nature) to preserve turtle eggs, preventing these creatures from extinction. The objective of beach patrols is to prevent poachers from taking the eggs and selling them for profits. Having such patrols will allow those who are on duty to transfer the eggs to a hatchery where the eggs will be guarded by WWF personnel on duty. Regardless of where the turtles laid their eggs, they will be placed safely to be hatch so as to ensure higher rate of survival

Before departing, they were told to wear dark colored clothing to prevent frightening the turtles away as the bright colors are easily mistaken as predators and danger. They were also warned not to make too much noise or shine light unnecessarily while walking. Just before they begin their patrolling duty, they released 70 hatchlings into the sea with the presence of a marine biologist, Nurol who is a researcher working with WWF. Then after, these two rover scouts walked with Pak Ali for about 2.5km along the beach to spot for turtles coming on shore. They encountered 5 turtles while they were about 2km into walking. Out of these 5 turtles, only 3 successfully found a safe spot to lay their eggs. This happened at around 11.35pm. They waited about 2 hours for the turtles to find a good place and lay their eggs. While waiting, they stayed about 10 meters away from the turtles to prevent from scaring them away.

Indeed it was really a rare opportunity to see 5 turtles at a go. This wasn’t the first time for Pak Ali to encounter such situations with any volunteers like Ben and Waqiu. However, Pak Ali was surprised because the egg laying season for the turtles was ending soon. Least to say, these turtles came up in unison. They mentioned that the turtles were about 50 meters apart from each other and that the turtles would come up about every 15 minutes apart. One of the possible reasons could be that the subsequent turtles noticed the first turtle successfully made the trip up to shore to lay the eggs and followed too.

There were 2 species among these 3 turtles. They are the Olive Ridley and Green Turtle. Olive Ridley turtles laid a total of 233 eggs – 1^st turtle (105), 2^nd turtle (128) – while the green turtle laid 90 eggs. They were also told that the eggs can only survive 2 hours without being fully buried in the sand. Therefore, as soon as they collected the eggs and counted them, the eggs were transferred into pails and bags containing sand and brought to the hatchery site at Penarik Inn Beach Chalet, where there would be WWF personal on guard. Necessary data for research purposes is also collected from the eggs.

While heading back, they spotted a group of young men sitting by the shore waiting for turtles too. It was no surprise to Ben and Waqiu because they knew there will be poachers collecting the eggs for sales.

All in all, Ben and Waqiu are really thankful to WWF for giving them the opportunity to participate in the patrol, and providing them the rare experience. Of course, this encounter will help to raise awareness on the issue where turtle eggs need to be protected to prevent the species from extinction as not all eggs will successfully develop into hatchlings. It is also necessary to inform the public that it is illegal to take these eggs and sell them for profiteering purposes. They hope that there will be a next time when both of them get a chance to do such patrolling again.