Yesterday evening saw the transportation of SiPenyu III, our 15 HP speedboat from Redang to Kampung Mangkuk for tracking river terrapins. The open boat that we have been hiring from Mat Rani has proven to be too hot for the long hours spent locating the terrapins. Refurbishing SiPenyu III and adding a collapsible roof to it took almost a month. I am now looking forward to the next tracking trip. I would like to record my thanks to Mr. Toh Seng Lip, the Managing Director of Laguna Redang Resort Sdn. Bhd for letting me use his company’s lorry and staff for transporting SiPenyu III from the boatyard in Teluk Pasu to Kampung Mangkuk.

I took the opportunity of the available lorry to transfer all our boxes of terrapin eggs back to the university to monitor hatching which is now in progress. It took four men to lift each incubation box. The boxes have thermostats and lights fitted into them to maintain female-producing temperatures. Some of the nests were incubated in styrofoam boxes kept in a shed in the compound of Rani and Lina’s house. The ambient temperature here would favour the the production of male hatchlings.

Nurul and Fong are kept busy monitoring the hatching and notching, weighing and measuring the hatchlings. We have 14 nests / boxes and hatchlings have emerged from 7 of them. As of now, we have over 100 new hatchlings.

• River terrapin updates
• Gerald and Guundie Kuchling @ TCC
• Sexual differentiation and sex manipulation
• Great news from the Kemaman River
• Excavating the terrapin nests in Kampung Mangkok