However, Malacca's legislation limits its coverage to five species listed in the First Schedule of the legislation. Most of the legislation in Malaysia deals with the regulated exploitation of turtles and turtle eggs. Development of appropriate information awareness programs aimed primarily at the residents of the Turtle Islands on the conservation of sea turtles and the protection of their habitats.
A permit authorizes the permit holder to collect turtle eggs of the species specified in the legislation.
Membership in International and Regional Treaties
The Director of the Sarawak Museum Department, who is also the Executive Officer for the Turtle Board, is responsible for the turtle research and conservation programs in the Sarawak Turtle Islands. This was the starting point of Sarawak Forestry Department's involvement in sea turtle conservation programs. In 1996, the Turtle Board gave approval for the Sarawak Forestry Department to conduct the conservation program at Pulau Talang-Talang Kechil from June to September.
Conservation programs at Pulau Talang-Talang Besar and Pulau Satang Besar were under the preview of the Sarawak Museum Department. Since 1998, management and research on Sarawak sea turtles has been taken over by the Sarawak Forestry Department. It consists of the Sarawak Forestry Department, the Sarawak Museum Department, the Turtle Board and the Sarawak Marine Fisheries Department.
In 2003, most of the functions of the Sarawak Forestry Department were taken over by Sarawak Forestry Sendirian Berhad (SFC Sdn. Bhd.), a company wholly owned by the Sarawak State Government. The conservation and management of sea turtles and other wildlife in Sarawak was undertaken by the Protected Areas and Biodiversity Conservation Unit of Sarawak Forestry Corporation Sdn. One of the research programs carried out on sea turtles in Sarawak is the radio telemetry survey.
Hatcheries
This ensures that trawlers stay away from interesting sea turtle habitats during the nesting season. Between 1998 and 2003, a total of one thousand reef balls were randomly distributed around Talang-Satang National Park. Through this research, areas of interesting habitat for sea turtles nesting in Talang-Satang National Park have been identified.
The areas used by the turtles during the interesting period were planted with reef balls to deter fishermen from fishing in the area. This led to a marked reduction in the number of dead turtles reported from the Talang-Satang areas.
Management Practices of Sea Turtle Hatcheries in Malaysia
Artificial Beach Hatcheries
The Operation of Beach Hatcheries
Incubation in Styrofoam Boxes
The hatching success from 26 batches of naturally incubated eggs was reported to be higher at an average of 86.4% in 1993 (Kamarruddin and Abdul Rahman, 1993). Without predation by ghost crabs and red ants, 9 of 222 nests had 100% display success during the 2002 Mak Cape nesting beach study.
Low Hatching Success
Hatchery Management Peninsular Malaysia
With regard to the increase in the percentage of emergence success and healthy young, SEAFDEC/. The results of the above research activities were presented and published in local and international publications.
Sabah
They collect data from egg-laying adult turtles, mark nest sites, transfer eggs to the hatchery, and release hatchlings. There are currently three hatchery methods practiced in Sarawak, namely artificial beach hatchery, styrofoam box incubation and on-site incubation. In Pulau Talang-Talang B esar and Pulau Talang-Talang Kechil, hatcheries have been set up on the breeding beaches.
All clutches were also hatched directly in Styrofoam boxes from early October to late April of the following year. Sand in the hatchery was excavated and turned over every year in April to keep the hatchery clean of all kinds of material such as wood, rotten roots, etc. The hatchery in Tanjung Datu National Park was set up above the tidal water line.
The sand in the nursery was turned over every year and replaced with fresh sand from the beach every three years. The Sarawak Museum has recorded annual green turtle landings on each of the turtle islands (Talang-Talang Besar Island, Talang-Talang Kechil Island and Satang Besar Island) since 1946. There were less than ten green turtle nests per year in Sarawak Turtle Islands.
Tagging and Satellite Telemetry Tracking Activities
The location was also changed every two years to prevent the eggs from being infected by fungi and bacteria. Clutches below the level of tidal inundation were moved to higher sites at the nesting beach. All nests in Tanjung Datu National Parks were incubated in fenced artificial beach hatchery due to significant number of natural predators in residential areas such as wild boar and lizards.
During Hendrickson's tenure as Curator of the Sarawak Museum, turtle nurseries were established in the Turtle Islands (de Silva, 1979). The cyclical return pattern of green turtles reared over the past 26 years (1970 to 1995) has fluctuated by an average of 2,000 flocks per year. Remigration refers to the return of an adult sea turtle to its resting place for an additional nesting season.
The actual interval between the breeding season for leatherbacks in Malaysia would be greater than 2 years. These tagging programs indicated that leatherback turtles can nest 1-8 times (3.3 times per season on average), with an average nesting interval of 13.4 days.
Tagging Activities in Peninsular Malaysia
Malaysian shoals have spread to feeding grounds throughout the Indo-Pacific waters (Leong and Siow, 1980 and Kamaruddin et al., 1996). In Terengganu itself, a total of 49 turtles were tagged in 2003 which included one leatherback, 47 greens and one hawksbill. The PIT label was introduced in Malaysia in 2003 as an experiment by SEAFDEC/MFRDMD at Mak Kepit and Ma’ Daerah.
Turtles nesting on Malaysian beaches may travel to the Philippines for feeding with the hatchlings floating in the South China Sea or Pacific Ocean for several years. Subsequently, in 1990, the DOFM attempted to use satellite telemetry tracking to study the migration routes of leatherbacks, but this was not entirely successful. Liewet al., (1995) successfully determined the post-nesting migration routes of five greens using satellite tracking systems.
It was observed that the turtles migrated immediately after the last nesting of the year and swam across the ocean to their natural foraging area. The most recent was in July 2003 when two satellite transmitters were attached to mature greens at Ma' Daerah to determine their offshore habitat. Unfortunately, due to a technical malfunction of the transmitter, the result of the tracking activity was not successfully recorded.
Tagging Activities in Sabah and Sarawak
Sarawak Forest Department started marking activities using inconel tags at Pulau Talang-Talang Kecil in 1996. In 1999, a year-round tagging program was carried out in the Sarawak Turtle Islands by the Sarawak Forestry Department. A satellite telemetry tracking project entitled "A Conservation Study of the Ecology of Marine Turtles in Sarawak" was carried out with the help of IRPA national fund.
In 2000, 4 more mature green turtles were also fitted with the same equipment at Pulau Satang Besar. Another study of the intramural movement of green turtles from Pulau Talang-Talang Besar, Pulau Talang-Talang Kechil and Pulau Satang Besar was conducted in 2003. Three mature green turtles from each of the islands were fitted with radio and ultrasonic telemetry equipment.
The establishment of Malaysian marine parks also protects the flora and fauna of the areas, including the sea turtles (Sukarno, 1999). Under the Fisheries (Prohibited Areas) Regulations 1994, the maritime waters within two nautical miles of the outermost points of all islands in Malaysia (measured from the low water mark) are fishing prohibited areas under Section 61 of the Fisheries Act 1985. Water bodies within a 4.8 km radius of the highest point on each of the islands are declared as Totally Protected Areas.
Feeding Grounds and Migration
The Sarawak State Government took another giant step forward in its turtle conservation effort by publishing the Sarawak Turtle Islands as Talang-Satang National Park in September 1999. Their entire trail took the same route: northeast from Sarawak Turtle Islands off the Sarawak coast to the northern tip of Borneo, then radiating to various destinations in Sabah, Philippines and Indonesia. Research conducted in 2002 by Sarawak Forestry Department researchers confirms that there is quite a large area of seagrass beds in the Lawas area.
Offshore patrolling is coordinated by the Sarawak Forestry Department, the Sarawak Marine Fisheries Department and the Marine Police through the Sarawak Reef Ball Task Force Enforcement Committee. The Sarawak Forestry Department also gets the full support of other government and non-government agencies and the public in enforcing the Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998 (amended 2003). When most of the functions of the Sarawak Forestry Department were taken over by Sarawak Forestry Corporation Sdn.
For the past few years, the Sarawak Forestry Department has a collaborative work with the Department of Marine Fisheries Sarawak on the preparation of Marine Education Kits. Sea turtle volunteer program at Pulau Talang-Talang Besar and Pulau Talang-Talang Kecil was jointly organized by the Sarawak Forestry Department and the Malaysian Wildlife Society, Kuching Branch from 1999 to 2003. The Sarawak Forestry Department works closely with the Ministry of Education, Sarawak on ' an environmental education syllabus that included sea turtle conservation in primary and secondary schools.
Research Activities
The main sources of funding for conducting sea turtle research in Malaysia are IRPA, SEAFDEC, DOFM, oil companies, commercial banks and NGOs, especially WWF-Malaysia. The 1998-2002 IRPA-funded project entitled “A Conservation Study of the Ecology of Marine Turtles in Sarawak” amounting to RM1,359,912 (US$355,533) has enabled the Sarawak Forest Department to achieve “state of the art” purchase equipment, such as supplies and basic field equipment. It has also enabled the employment of full-time workers and sponsored post-doctoral research on sea turtles in Sarawak (Bali et. al. 2001).
This project enabled various agencies to collaborate on research programs for the Sarawak Turtle Islands. The “Talang-Satang Turtle Research Task Force” was established in June 1998 and consists of Sarawak Turtle Board (Chairman), Sarawak Museum, Sarawak Forest Department and Sarawak Marine Fisheries Department (Bali et. al. 2001). This working group meets periodically to review research on Turtle Islands.
In addition, the task force was able to monitor the implementation of various rules and regulations for sea turtles in the Turtle Islands. This is due to the fact that most of its members are actively in the field conducting research and have been able to be the "eyes and ears" of the implementation. This has coordinated enforcement and had the benefit of deterring offenders who were previously breaking the laws and, in doing so, disturbing the turtles (Bali et. al. 2001).
