[Coral-List] Sabah's turtles / reefs and reefballs to the rescue
Nicolas J. Pilcher
pilcher at tm.net.my
Wed Mar 22 19:06:00 EST 2006
Hi all:
The turtle islands (there are three) were purchased by the Sabah State
Government in 1966, and have been home to only a small team of rangers and
their families since that time. On Selingan there is also a small
detachment of security personnel. There is a significant trawl industry out
of nearby Sandakan.
In Sarawak, our neighbouring state, the Parks authority seeded reefballs at
random in waters near their islands to deter bottom trawling - the idea was
that no trawler captain wanted to be raising a reefball in his nets. By and
large this worked there. I am not aware of the reason for deploying them in
Sabah though - however, if the reason was to deter netting, it is likely
successful at that - just not at creating a new reef or providing erosion
control.
As for turtle nesting, the population size / nesting trend is (for the
most) part not related. I raised the turtle nesting issue simply because
the age to maturity is in the region of 30 years, and the hatchlings that
leave return as adults to the same beaches - thus the stability is
obviously sufficient for the beaches to continue to exist 30 years later
without the need for reefballs.
Hope this helps,
Nick
At 04:37 PM 3/20/2006 -0800, Lee Goldman wrote:
>Hi Todd,
>
> I'm afraid i'm a bit confused by your statement about the reef balls in
> Sabah. You established a bunch of reef balls 8 years ago and that has
> stopped the netting(?) and substantially increased the amount of turlte
> nestings in the area? Can you please elaborate on this and included your
> evidence? Also, when were these islands made off limits to humans?
> Perhaps, assuming that 8 years is enough time to see an increase in
> turtle nesting, there is a stronger correlation to the increase in turtle
> nestings due to lack of human interference?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Lee Goldman
> Coralfarmguam
> PO Box 6682
> Tamuning, Guam
> 671.646.6744
> Coralfarmgaum at yahoo.com
>
>
>
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Dr. Nicolas J. Pilcher
Co-Chair IUCN SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group
Executive Director
Marine Research Foundation
136 Lorong Pokok Seraya 2
Taman Khidmat
88450 Kota Kinabalu
Sabah
Malaysia
Tel ++ 60 88 386136
Fax ++ 60 88 387136
Email: pilcher at tm.net.my
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