Marine turtles have been around for at least 230 million
years, but because of human activities they have been brought, over the past
hundred years, to the brink of extinction.
We had the special opportunity to visit a park for the endangered green
and hawksbill turtles. The small island
we went to was part of a chain of islands along with the Philippines that
servers as turtle conservatories. The
island we visited had a hatchery program with nightly baby turtle releases in
the thousands. Less than 1% of turtles will survive
to mating age, most die within their first year. They say during peak
season there can be up to 50 females who come ashore to lay eggs. Most of the
eggs are dug up and moved to the hatchery, some are left at the beach as well. It was great to see this program of
conservation, but not many miles away we saw turtle eggs for sale at a local
market in Anambas Indonesia.
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| Newborn Green Turtle released to sea |
Video of released baby turtle swimming off
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| Turtle Island Anchorage |
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| Illimite under sail |
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| Our Rally Fleet on the move, always at the crack of dawn |
These photos are gorgeous! Sea turtles are one of my favorite animals, and I'm trying to reduce my use of plastics to help save them. I hope you are dong well, and we miss you at GOL!
ReplyDeleteAlso, this is the PM, Stephanie. I see it has me as unknown. LOL
DeleteHI Stephanie, i hope all is well, we are safe past all the piracy spots
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