Turtle Islands Park

Sea turtles are one of nature's great marvels.

This park lies 40 km off Sabah's East coast. The nearest town is Sandakan. 

It consists of the following islands: 

Pulau Bakkungan Kecil
This is the largest island.
Attractions: Green turtles

Pulau Selingan
The second largest island of the park provides also accommodation and a restaurant.
Attractions: Green turtles.

Pulau Gulisan
Attraction: Hawksbill turtles and green turtles.

Best time to visit: between July and October.

Getting there: by boat from Sandakan, the boat ride may take in between one hour and three hours. 

Turtle scientists like Dr. Jean Mortimer of the USA, say they remain intrigued by the reptile's precise navigational feats. Female Green Turtles, for instance, are known to venture hundreds, even thousands of nautical miles across seas and oceans but will always find their way back to the very same beach where they first hatched, to lay eggs, 20 or more years later, when they mature. Marine turtles live between 40 to 70 years. Mortimer says scientist are mystified exactly how the creatures remember their ways through trackless seas.

The British North Borneo Chartered Company rulers first imposed restricted hunting of the Hawksbill Turtle (for their shells) way back in 1927. The Malaysian government started the country's sea turtle hatchery in Selingan Island in 1966 and in 1977, gazetted 1,740 hectares islands and sea embracing Selingan, Bakkungan Kecil and Gulisan into a marine park which is only 40 km North of Sandakan. A powerful speed boat can reach it in less than an hour.

Generally speaking, turtle populations worldwide are dwindling. But in Sabah's protected turtle islands, nestings have recorded a steadily increasing trend since 1991, according to Dr. Junaidi Payne, a scientific Officer with Worldwide Fund for Nature, Malaysia, a sign that 30 years of conservation efforts are working. Only two species of turtles, namely the hawksbill and the bigger Green Turtle, nest at the turtle islands. Sighting is guaranteed, every night, year round and they are especially plentiful during the peak months between July and October. Fewer land during the North East Monsoon months between December and February.

The highlight is to watch a turtle laying eggs. The process is dramatic, especially with the large Green Turtles as they lumber ashore, select a site, dig a 12 to 18 inch deep egg chamber with their powerful hind flippers and deposit between 40 to 190 eggs, covering them with sand before returning to sea.

NESTING BEHAVIOURS

The complex and tedious process of the turtle egg-laying can be divided into eight stages:-
1. Emerging from the sea, selecting a course to a beach.
2. Selecting a nesting site above the high-tide mark.
3. Clearing the site with sweeping motions of the front and sometimes hind flippers to encave herself in the body pit.
4. Excavating the eggs chamber with her rear flippers to a depth of about 12 to 18 inches.
5. After the completion of the eggs pit, there is a short rest, then she proceeds to lay her eggs.
6. When all the eggs have been laid, the process of covering and concealing the nest pit, the turtle returns to the sea. The whole process normally takes about an hour to complete.

HATCHERIES

A hatchery has been established on each of the three islands. The wire enclosures are normally situated 50 feet away from the high water mark. Clutches of eggs are transplanted inside the enclosures and the distance between each hole is three feet.

Clutches of freshly laid eggs are excavated and transplanted to the hatchery with a minimum of delay. In the hatchery the eggs are carefully placed by hand into a pit of 30 inches deep. Before the pit is fully covered with sand, a chicken wire mess cylinder is placed round its mouth and a bamboo plate with the following information is placed inside:- (i) serial number of nest, (ii) date of collection, and (iii) number of eggs transplanted.

INCUBATION PERIOD

After between 50 - 60 days, the young hatchlings emerge to the surface of the pit, usually at night when the temperature is cooler and the sand not so hot. Apart from the hazards of overheating and dehydration, emergence at night would also allow the hatchlings to avoid making a journey across the exposed beach where they would be highly visible to the predators.
(Sabah Tourism Promotion Corporation)

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