By Anukshi Jayasinha

The little coastal town of Kosgoda is renowned for its sea turtle hatcheries, run by individual turtle conservationists who are eager to protect these endangered species. One of them is the Amarasena’s Sea Turtle Hatchery, built in 1966 by Amarasena Fernando. After surviving a terrible blow during the 2004 tsunami, the hatchery is now home to many blind and deformed sea turtles as well as newborn hatchlings, drawing in visitors from all parts of Sri Lanka and the rest of the world.

The birth of sea turtle species that exist today date as far back as 110 million years ago. The sea turtle’s shell is streamlined for swimming through water and has an upper part (carapace) and lower part (plastron). All varieties except the Leatherback have hard scales (scutes) on their shells. It has a short tail and unlike other turtle varieties, cannot retract its legs and head into the shell. Its large flippers help them adapt to a sea life.

Sea turtles in Sri Lanka

The sea turtle does not have teeth, but has a sharp jaw with modified ‘beaks’ that helps them eat. It usually finds it own food, and each variety has its own diet. It commonly eats mostly jellyfish, seaweed, crabs, shrimp, sponges, snails, algae and mollusks. However, the Green Turtle switches to an herbivorous diet, while the Loggerhead is omnivorous. It has an excellent sense of smell, and while its vision underwater is good, it is nearsighted on land. Sea turtles usually come out onto the surface of the water every eight to 30 minutes to breathe. Sea turtles are also believed to have a remarkable life span of over 300 years.

Out of the seven existing sea turtle varieties that exist today, five are found in Sri Lanka; the Hawksbill, the Green Turtle, the Loggerhead, the Leatherback and the Olive Ridley. Amarasena remembers a time when there were close to 6,000 sea turtles in the coast of Sri Lanka. However, this number, he says has dwindled down to the hundreds – around 200 – today. Often they get tangled up in fishing nets when they come to the surface for air and are killed or eaten as prey.

Sea turtles reach sexual maturity after only reaching 18-30 years, when they meet for mating. Females then come to the beach to lay their eggs (males rarely return to the beach after going into the ocean as hatchlings). Most species nest multiple times in one nesting season. They build a large pit (body pit) in the sand with their flippers and then another (egg chamber), where it lays 100 to 190 eggs at a time, buries them and returns back to sea.

Ensuring safe hatching

Amarasena employs a small staff that observes the laying of eggs at night and brings them back to his hatchery at 7.00 a.m., before they fall into the hands of careless humans. According to Amarasena, these turtle eggs, if not watched with vigilance, are stolen by those who wander on the beaches at night and take them back for consumption. His staff has to be quick when gathering the eggs; they are easily damaged by water and salt.

Once they are brought back, Amarasena buries them in a large pit that is sectioned off. Visitors will find small mounds of sand, built to protect the eggs from rain water, marking the spot in which each variety is carefully buried. Each mound holds a little placard with the initials of the sea turtle variety it is protecting and the estimated number of days it will take the eggs to hatch, usually around two months. According to Amarasena, Kosgoda remains one of the most popular nesting spots for sea turtles because of the powdery soft sand found along its beach. Once hatched, the tiny hatchling makes its way to the surface of the sand before finding its way into the water. But here at the hatchery, Amarasena keeps them in a large pool for around five to six days before releasing them into the ocean at night, usually around 7.00 p.m.

Sea turtles are usually expected to be released after one to two days after hatching, but Amarasena insists on releasing them a few days later, when their navels have become progressively smaller and incapable of attracting larger fish, which spot them when light reflects on the water. It is through the sea turtle hatchling’s navel that Amarasena and his staff feed them with essential vitamins. After around 10 days, the hatchlings start looking for food and, if kept for a longer period at the hatchery, have to be fed fish.

Home for the vulnerable

Female sea turtles make up only one percent of each batch of hatchlings. The chances of female Leatherbacks being born are one in 1,000. For this reason, Amarasena keeps a batch of female baby turtle hatchlings in a special pool, nurturing them for a year before releasing them. Among the other sea turtles Amarasena keeps in his hatchery are many blind, deformed or injured turtles and an albino turtle. According to him, one in 3,000 sea turtles born is born blind. The injured turtles he looks after were most often the victims of fishing nets, in which their limbs were badly dented, while another was found stuck under a stone, leaving its shell permanently dented. Maintaining these pools requires changing the water every three days, as sea turtles are used to the salinity in seawater.

Amarasena, who has lived in the Kosgoda area since he was a child, first started hatching sea turtle eggs in 1963. As a young child, he was inquisitive about sea turtles he found on the beach, and was later encouraged by Cyril Ponnamperuma, renowned Sri Lankan scientist, to pursue turtle conservation. Starting off by hatching small batches of eggs, he was soon able to build his own hatchery. To date, he has been successful in releasing 800,000 turtles into the sea. He has also composed his own song about protecting sea turtles, which has been aired on mainstream media, and his hatchery was featured on a documentary on sea turtle conservation, made by the University of Moratuwa.

For those curious to learn about sea turtles, this is an excellent place to start. These endangered species often attract ruthless hunters that kill them for their exquisite shells, used to make a variety of products, from household to expensive fashion accessories. And so in Amarasena’s hatchery, they are safe and loved, at least for a year or two, before they go off on their own into the vast, deep blue sea.COURTESY:CEYLON TODAY