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03/22/2006
The Harm of Good Intentions
by Joel Palma
Green sea turtle, Chelonia mydas, copyright WWF-Canon / Roger Hooper
BusinessWorld’s associate editor had a great time in Palawan gazing at indigenous and alien wildlife: bayawaks, mouse deer, zebras, giraffes and of course, turtles. It’s a great celebration of local tourism – but not so ‘eco’. The image of a turtle hatchling in the palm of a human hand was disturbing and spurred this article. Equally disturbing was the good intentions of Club Paradise where hatchlings are kept for a month until they are ‘strong’ enough to resist predators, giving them a better chance for survival.
Turtles are complex creatures that live for centuries and are fascinating example of the ephemeral and delicate connection of species to their natural environment. Female turtles return to the exact place they are born to lay their eggs and birth their young, completing reproductive cycles inextricably linked to their birthplace. WWF was alerted to an unusual number of turtle nest sites along beaches in Batangas and Bataan. It is thought that some of the females may have been part of a group originally born along the beaches of Manila Bay and Cavite. Unable to return to their birthplaces beneath the concrete of urban development, they migrated to other beaches close by.
Olive Ridley Hatchlings on their way to the sea, copyright WWF-Canon / Michel GuntherWhat is it that makes turtles return to their birthplaces but a lien to the land imprinted in them as they grow in the eggs buried deep in sand. The lien strengthens when they come out of their eggs. They must crawl the natal beach for the imprint to grow clearer, indelible and permanent enough to lead them back 30 to 50 years later to reproduce. That is, if nothing interferes with the bonding. Thus, studies have proven that the longer you hold a hatchling after emergence, the less chance it has for survival. They grow lost.
Within 24 hours of emergence the turtles go through what scientist term a "swimming frenzy". This behavior propels the hatchlings to the sea, to an area beyond the "surf zone" where their instincts lead them to catch the major current system that brings them to their "lost year" habitat. Unlike mammals, which are long nurtured by their parents, turtles have only currents and their instincts to teach them.
Like plankton, they are carried by the currents to their developmental habitats, their feeding zones critical to their self-sufficiency and survival. Here they stay until they are developed enough to actively migrate using their own locomotion to swim against the currents.
This early stage is crucial in developing their navigational skills. Thus it is imperative that the turtles succumb to this process so that they are able to find their migratory routes, traveling thousands of miles over the three to five decades they need to find their way back to the natal nesting beach. Releasing them after a month seems logical since growing them would strengthen their defense against predators. But sea turtles are more complex than this. Coddling hatchlings at the stage when they are most receptive to developing their migratory ways and learning the currents that will direct them in the harsh world of the ocean may eventually threaten their long-term survival. Instead, they are left ‘wandering’ around without the migratory instinct intact, a fundamental part of their life history disrupted due to the good intentions of humans wanting to save turtles.
In Hawaii, it is illegal to disturb a turtle or interfere with it in any way. They understand that the developmental process, no matter how complex, needs to be maintained as this is the very process that helped the turtles outlive the dinosaurs over 150 million years ago.
00:05 Posted by sr in Eco-tourism, Marine, Species | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Ecology & Environment