Sri Lanka 2014: First Day on Turtle Conservation Project

For my first two weeks my primary project will be the Sea Turtle Conservation Project. On Monday afternoon we went to a beach in Ambalagoda where PMGY has recently bought some land and built a fence around it in preparation for a turtle hatchery. We were given a talk by the Captain (nae clue what his actual name is, just the Captain!) about sea turtles and the project. He has his own Sea Turtle Conversation volunteer project which is in fact a rival to PMGY however his job is to oversee everything turtle-related in Sri Lanka hence his involvement with us. He also very proudly showed us a newspaper cutting of himself with the Sri Lankan Prime Minister.

For the rest of the afternoon we were tasked with filling the hatchery. The hatchery at this point was a empty rectangle about a metre deep surrounded by concrete walls. Outside the fenced area was a large pile of sand and so we spent the afternoon moving bucketfuls of sand into the hatchery.

Lucky timing, Ashika had baby turtles ready to be released that night at sundown. Since that day marked the first day of volunteers on the brand new Sea Turtle Conservation Project everyone was invited to come to the release. It was most definitely a brilliant end to my first Monday in Sri Lanka!

A lot of the turtle eggs dont survive to hatch, and then a lot of the babies wont survive long out at sea due to various circumstances such as predators or strong waves crashing them against rocks and so on. Out of the ones that do survive however, it will take 15-20 years for them to reach maturity at which point some of those female turtles should return to the same beach they were released from to lay their own eggs. In theory the beach at the hatchery will, in 20 years time, be a completely safe and protected environment for sea turtles.

And once again here are some photos. I think my posts will end up having more photos than words! A picture is worth a thousand words though right!?