by The world’s largest sea turtle, leatherback sea turtles are a rarity in Thailand thanks to habitat loss, plastic pollution and eating their eggs.
It’s after midnight on a beach in southern Thailand, and 12-year-old Prin Uthaisangchai stares anxiously at a leatherback turtle’s nest, waiting for dozens of the endangered hatchlings to crawl out of the sand.
The Bangkok secondary school student is producing a short documentary about the snapper as part of a program run by the Environmental and Social Foundation, an NGO that works to educate children about conservation.
That morning, a team of marine biologists noticed that the sand covering one of the leatherback turtle nests on Phang Nga Beach was beginning to collapse.
It was a telltale sign that the eggs buried within were beginning to rupture, and that sometime that night the hatchlings would emerge and rush to the ocean under cover of darkness.
But after more than 20 hours with no sign of baby turtles, Prin and the team became concerned.
They donned plastic gloves and carefully dug into the nest to give every squirming critter in the world a helping hand.
Soon, the tiny turtles scrambled to shore, where waves swept in and carried them to their new ocean home.
“I am very disappointed at how we are having to intervene in a natural creature that should not need human assistance,” Prin said.
“But in the end we have to help.”
Bangkok high school student Prin Uthaisangchai is producing a short documentary about leatherback turtles to raise awareness for conservation.
reclaiming the beaches
Leatherback sea turtles — the world’s largest sea turtle, weighing up to 500 kilograms — are a rarity in Thailand due to habitat loss, plastic pollution and eating of their eggs.
The creatures are listed as vulnerable worldwide on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, with many subpopulations listed as critically endangered.
The pandemic has allowed the turtles to retake beaches that are normally packed with tourists, with marine biologists recording an increase in nests.
Better protection of creatures has also contributed to this. Thailand banned poaching of their eggs in 1982, and locals are now being paid 20,000 baht ($570) for reporting a leatherback nest — like the one Prin is scrutinizing closely in the moonlight.
But only 87 hatchlings out of 126 eggs in the nest survived their short journey to the sea.
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Prin spent two years visiting Thailand’s southern coast to research the animal’s habitat, interview experts and hunt turtle tracks on beaches.
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The pandemic has allowed the turtles to retake beaches that are normally packed with tourists, with marine biologists recording an increase in nests.
“It was a good decision to help them, otherwise we would see more deaths,” said marine biologist Hirun Kanghae of the government-run Phuket Marine Biological Centre.
Prin spent two years visiting Thailand’s southern coast during school holidays, researching the animal’s habitat, interviewing experts and chasing turtle tracks on beaches.
His 10-minute film, currently in post-production, will be one of a dozen the Environment and Social Foundation is producing to help educate other young people about their country’s threatened marine life.
“I like that they’re great swimmers and they can dive the deepest,” he said of the leatherbacks.
“I want to sensitize people around me and people on the other side of the world to hear the story of the leatherback turtle and why they are going extinct.”
© 2023 AFP
Citation: Hatching leatherback turtles get helping hand on Thai beach (2023, March 4), retrieved March 4, 2023 from https://phys.org/news/2023-03-hatching-leatherback-turtles-thai-beach.html
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