Firstly, apologies for my rather long absence from this space. It is not due to the want of activities to report, but rather, its been too many activities keeping us busy all the time.

Our first river terrapin nest was deposited on 28th January which meant I literally had to rush to Kampung Mangkok right after I returned from Chinese New Year celebrations in Penang with family.

Our meeting and dinner party with egg collectors from Mangkok and Penarik on 22nd January seem to be paying off. We had negotiated with them to sell us complete clutches of eggs by giving them an incentive of an extra RM10 for doing so. So far, Lina, the villager who helps us buy and incubate eggs in Mangkok has procured five whole clutches. This year we have roped in Ropi (I love this pun) to help extend the work to Kampung Banggol and he is now incubating terrapin eggs in his house for us.

We have started a new project on incidental captures of terrapins in the Setiu River. Fishermen are encouraged to hand over any captures made in their respective gears and we offer a reward of RM10 per terrapin. The response has been pretty amazing! We are getting captures of our head-started terrapins released since 2005 and i believe with time, we should be able to make precise assessments on how well our head-starts are doing in the wild. Significant numbers of painted terrapins are processed as well through this project.

We had the honour of hosting the visit of Rick Hudson, Co-Chairman of the US-based Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) and his conservation director, Dr. Brian Horne from 1 – 4 February.

The following is extracted from the February issue of the Turtle Survival Alliance Newsletter for February 2009:

Malaysia – we were hosted by Dr. Engheng Chan and her former student Ms Pelf Nyok Chen of University Malaysia Terengganu. We have supported Chan’s research with both Batagur and Callagur over the years and the time has come to begin implementing the results into management strategies of the various Batagur headstarting programs throughout Malaysia where the basic science of egg incubation, TSD and reintroduction technology has been lacking. Several courses of action have been charted including improving the research facilities at Chan’s turtle lab, building a new breeding pond, headstarting and incubation facilities at the government-run Batagur facility at Terengganau (situated on a river that still supports a sizeable nesting population) and developing a rescue facility for large riverine turtles from the trade (Pelochelys, Orlitia, Chitra among them). We also want to expand work on the Setiu River which is an interesting river, running to the east coast of Malaysia and then turning north and running parallel to the coast before emptying into the South China Sea. Both Batagur and Callagur use this river for nesting and it presents an excellent opportunity to better understand how two such similar species co-exist in the same habitat.

Located close to Kuala Terengganu, the Setiu River offers an ideal site to continue needed conservation work, i.e. egg protection, hatching, headstarting and release, and we are very excited about the potential for concentrating our efforts on this river. This article appeared in one of the leading national newspapers while we were there — Setiu is ground zero for two terrapin species.

The illegal trade in wild turtles leaving Malaysia for China is not only still active, but shockingly blatant, well-organized and high volume. We were stunned to see a group of 10 – 12 adult Manouria emys at a turtle farm, the remnants of a 15 ton shipment that had been recently sent to China for the New Year. Some quick calculations led us to estimate that this represented ~1000 tortoises, a staggering loss to wild populations. The group in this photograph awaits a similar fate. That this level of collection of wild adult tortoises is still occurring is grim testament to the fact that we MUST expand our commitment to protecting turtles in Asia, and continue our focus on assurance colonies, both in situ and ex situ.

• Setiu is ground zero for two terrapin species
• An update on the Setiu River egg protection program
• Turtles in trouble
• “Independence Day” for river terrapins
• TSA in Terengganu to support freshwater turtle conservation