Source : The Star, Malaysia, 25 Aug '06
By : Dr.Yong VF
  

Its easy to blame trawler nets, pollution,illegal egg collectors and traders,tsunami and natural turtle predators, this is obvious for all to see and yes these factors may affect turtle returns to varying degree. But there is an unforseen factor acting against the very creature it tries to help and this I hope to highlight.

I am not an expert on turtles nor am I a marine biologist ,I am only a GP doctor but I have been observing the ways of nature since young and I have always belieive that the basic tenet of science is the questioning of authority either of person or knowledge or practice.

What the Govt authorities,NGOs ,academicians and naturelovers are doing to solve this probelm here is spotting the egg laying (allowing controlled tourist viewing), collecting the eggs and hatching them in artificial hatcheries and releasing the hatchlings (another tourist event).

What if these very innocent and well intended actions may be reponsible for even further reduction in turtles returning to our beaches to lay eggs ?.

Two reasons have to be considered. Firstly,there are two types of young ones in nature. Some are independant at birth and have to survived by hidding and running to safety as soon as possible. They have develop some negative imprinting early in life. Most reptiles belong to this category. The other type is dependant at birth on the care and protection of the parent and they are basically helpless and have to develop some positive imprinting in their behaviour soon after birth to recognise their parents. Most higher animals fall in this category eg mammals,birds

We cannot assume that the young turtles(and even the laying adult) look upon us with the same loving kindness that we feel towards them - being so cute. In fact more likely we appear as monster predators to them , more so when we tourist handle them and some people even paint lettering of nationalism ('M') on their shells before release. This greatly enforce their negative imprinting , so how can we hope they will return to this 'unsafe' beach in years time to lay precious eggs!Nature has its own way of ensuring survival!.

Secondly,we all know now that turtle are able to navigate all the way from oceans afar back to their orginal beach of birth by making use of the earth's magnetic field somehow imprinted as a map in the brains.Its is also very likely that the incubation period of the eggs when the embroynic brain is devoloping and the early few hours afterbirth are CRUCIAL to the magnetic map imprinting process of the turtling's brain. So do you think it helps to dig the eggs out and move them here and there during this crucial period? I dont know if the eggs are moved around in the hacheries (or when are they released to sea) but I do know we have to turn chicken eggs around now and then in incubators to improve sucess.All this may result in confusion of the imprinting process and a higher chance of grown up turtles losing their way back.

In short we have to protect the turtles in the most natural way possible because we just do not understand all the very subtle and mysterious ways which nature works.It is not the first time that man's misguided and crude attempts at helping nature end up in causing more damage than good.In fact the very idea of helping nature is also another misguided notion - but more on that later.....

Thank you and regards,

Dr. Yong VF.