First I would like to apologise for my long absence. I have been away from 14 Aug – 23 September 2008, attending conferences, visiting turtle project sites and giving seminars along the way from Brazil, Nova Scotia in Canada and finally to Arizona in the US. It has been an amazing trip and I will post a blog later to show some pictures on my turtle experiences along the way. I will be going to Chagar Hutang tomorrow to fill in for Soleha who is on long leave for the Hari Raya break.
I think some of you may be interested in the nesting activity of our turtles since my last update till June 2008. We had 120 nests deposited in July, 84 in August and 44 in September (as of 26th September). This brings our total nesting density to 584 so far this year. I am very certain that we will surpass the 600 mark. Nesting for hawksbill turtles has ceased since June.
To date, a total of 122 individual turtles have nested in Chagar Hutang this year. 77 of these are new recruits. Returnees from previous years have ranged from 1 to 9. Notably, 4 turtles first tagged in 1993 were recorded, and if you recall one of them is our hawksbill, “Little Princess”.
On other news, one of our ex-volunteers, En. Bakhtiah Talhar has taken on a new job as the Executive Director of the Malaysian AIDS Council. Those of you who attended our reunion at AQUARIA KLCC last year may have met him there. The TRRG wishes you all the best, Bakh!!
I would like to sign off with a picture I have entitled “serendipity”. It was a rare encounter with a wild desert tortoise at the Sonoran Desert in Tucson, Arizona and taken the morning before I left the US.
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