Setiu River Terrapin Recovery Project

Working from our base in Terengganu, Malaysia to save turtles

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Setiu River Terrapin Recovery Project

This project was initiated in 2004 when Chan was attached to Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. It is now continued under the TCC.

The objective of the Setiu River Terrapin Recovery Project is to rehabilitate the severely depleted population of river terrapins (Batagur affinis) in the Setiu River.

Seed money for this project was awarded by the US-based Turtle Conservation Fund (TCF) and Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA). We take this opportunity to thank them for the grants and for maintaining a keen interest in the development of the project. The results of the various aspects of the project have been presented in international conferences in Beijing, Hong Kong, Stellenbosch (South Africa), San Diego, Tucson, Ohio (US) and Manaus (Brazil) and locally in Malaysia as well.

The project involves the purchase of river terrapin eggs from local egg collectors, incubation of the eggs and head-starting the hatchlings for release in an event we call “Terrapin Independence Day (TID).” All the terrapins are microchipped for individual identification before release. The first 500 microchips were donated by the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and second 300 units by Aquaria KLCC, both of which are gratefully acknowledged.

The tables below summarise the achievements of the project to date.

Year	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
No. of Eggs Incubated	364	278	384	229	245	301	91	93
No. of Hatchlings Produced	236	147	275	180	139	201	60	0
Hatching Success	64.8%	52.8%	71.6%	78.6%	56.7%	66.8%	65.9%	0%

The following table shows the number of river terrapins that have been hatched and released since 2004. Also included are the number of terrapins that have died and/or escaped.

Year	Number of hatchlings	Number of terrapins released	Number of terrapins died/escaped
TOTAL	1238	1081	156
2004	236	222	14
2005	147	131	16
2006	275	252	23
2007	180	155	25
2008	139	105	34
2009	201	161	40
2010	60	55	4

Note: We are currently head-starting a river terrapin hatched in 2010 because it is severely deformed upon emergence. Both its eyes are blind, and it has only three legs.