19 green turtles overturned and left to die

Source: Free Malaysia Today

Published on 10th March, 2015

Foreign fishermen may have tried to smuggle the turtles out alive but aborted the plan due to the presence of enforcement personnel.

KOTA KINABALU: Poachers have cruelly killed 19 green turtles by turning them on their back and leaving them to die in the uninhabited Pulau Tiga after the buyers did not turn up.

The Star reported that wildlife investigators believed that poachers had caught the turtles and turned them on their back while waiting for buyers.

However, the buyers never came, leaving the turtles to suffer a slow, painful death.

Unlike baby turtles, large ones that have been turned on their back cannot get back on their feet. They can survive for about 10 days to two weeks before they die.

According to a source, the people who were supposed to pick up the turtles did not make it.

A live turtle can fetch more than US$2,000 (RM7,200) and its meat, sold for about US$300 (RM1,080) in markets in China and Vietnam.

Malaysia imperils forest reserves and sea turtle nesting ground for industrial site (photos)

Source: Mongabay.com

Published on 15th April, 2014 by Jeremy Hance

Tanjung Hantu Forest Reserve. Photo by: Nadine Ruppert.

 

Plans for an industrial site threaten one of Malaysia’s only marine turtle nesting beaches and a forest home to rare trees and mammals, according to local activists. Recently, the state government of Perak approved building a liquefied natural gas plant and a steel coil mill inside Tanjung Hantu Permanent Forest Reserve. But activists say the industrial projects will not only cut into the reserve, but also scare away nesting turtles from Pasir Panjang, the last marine turtle beach in Perak. In an attempt to persuade government officials to move the projects, local activists have gathered over 83,000 signatures on an online petition.

“Although not very large in terms of area size (about 2720.79 hectares from the original size between 4000-4700 hectares) [Tanjung Hantu and neighboring Segari Melintang Permanent Forest Reserves are] one of the few forests left in the locality that is still somewhat intact and unfortunately, under-researched,” Nurul Salmi, a professor with Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), told mongabay.com.

Two companies are involved in the project: Maegma Steel is building the steel coil mill, while Atigas Technology is constructing the liquified natural gas plant. To build the projects, officials have degazetted 60 hectares from the Tanjung Hantu Permanent Forest Reserve, but campaigners fear the actual impacts of the industrial projects, including roads and housing for workers, will spread across the two small forest reserves and the turtle beach.

Pasir Panjang beach and adjacent forest. Photo by: Nadine Ruppert. Click to enlarge.

Both Tanjung Hantu and Segari Melintang are remnants of a vanishing forest type in Malaysia, according to Salmi. The reserves contain both coastal forest and hill forest and is home to two endangered dipterocarp tree species: Shorea glauca, currently listed as Endangered, and Shorea lumutensis, listed as Critically Endangered and only found in Malaysia. The forests are also home to charismatic, and threatened, mammals.

“Local villagers who frequent the forests have reported sightings of sun bear and black spotted leopard, which have been verified by evidence of

Four more sea turtles found killed

Source: The Star

Published on 17th April, 2014 by MUGUNTAN VANAR

Sad episode: The dead green sea turtles floating in east coast waters off Semporna.

KOTA KINABALU: Four more endangered green sea turtles have been killed in Sabah’s east coast waters off Semporna.

The turtles were seen floating between Bum Bum Island and Kulapuan Island by a Fisheries Department staff, who then posted it on his Facebook page but later removed it.

The latest killings came hardly a month after the discovery of 50 dead green sea turtles in Pulau Tiga in the northern Kudat district, a case that remains unsolved.

Sabah Wildlife Department and WWF-Malaysia have begun an investigation into the deaths of the green sea turtles in Semporna.

Universiti Malaysia Sabah academician and researcher Dr James Alin, who discovered the Pulau Tiga killings last month, said it was another sad episode in Sabah’s turtle conservation efforts.

Dr Alin said such deaths were unfortunately common in Semporna as he had seen them during his field trips to the area.

Following his discovery of the dead turtles in Kudat, he said he was called to meet with officials from the state Tourism, Culture and Environ­ment Ministry, which oversees various wildlife conservation efforts.

“At the beginning of that meeting, I showed slides of sea turtles kept alive inside a pen (fish cage) in Balambangan Island. I asked if any of the enforcement agencies was interested to arrest the owner.

“None of them seemed to be keen despite me offering to take them to the place,” he claimed, adding that a lack of manpower and logistics