A record-high 24 female green sea turtles laid eggs on Orchid Island (蘭嶼, Lanyu) this year, with 83 hatchlings counted as of Wednesday evening, a National Taiwan Ocean University research team said, calling the development “heartening.”
The university’s College of Life Sciences dean Cheng I-Jiunn (程一駿) said the green sea turtle population has increased in the past five years, because they were protected both on Orchid Island, where local residents do not hunt turtles for food, and in the seas near the south of Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, where the turtles travel to after laying eggs on Orchid Island.
Cheng said the university’s team has conducted research in Orchid Island’s Siaobadai Bay (小八代灣) in late June or July every year since 1997, and according to their observations, female green sea turtles usually return to the same area to lay eggs every four to six years.
The number of turtles the team has observed has risen from a yearly average of 10 in the past five years to 24 so far this year.
One female turtle identified as No. 3934, which was last recorded visiting Orchid Island six years ago, was temporarily trapped in a bush after laying and burying her eggs, Cheng said, adding that the team and local volunteers worked for two hours to free the turtle from its predicament.
According to Cheng, No. 3934’s eggs were dug up by other female turtles and five were broken in the process, while researchers saved the rest.
The Siabadai Bay team hopes to increase turtle numbers by digging up eggs and moving them to a more elevated area, so that they are not crushed by other turtles as they arrive later, Cheng said.
The team examined all of the 83 hatchlings and released them into the sea, Cheng said.
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