BE KIND TO OUR TURTLES
AND THE OBVIOUS NEED FOR THEIR PRESERVATION - PART 2

There is a turtle sanctuary at Chendor, about 30 km from Kuantan, Pahang, known as the Cherating Turtle Sanctuary. There, turtle eggs are kept and hatched in a special enclosed hatchery, and we can watch the young turtles crawl in their hundreds back to the sea after they’re hatched.

Here and today, in the state of Pahang at Chendor and Cherating we welcome with open arms and with extended help all those adorable turtles to come and breed at our beaches, as they had done hundreds of years ago nonchalantly, may I say, until it declined rather "recently", in the early 1990’s.

They used to come in droves, laying hundreds and thousands of eggs, and at the same time teaching the many humans and tourists who watched them in awe, about the Greatness of the Almighty, the Creator, the Beneficent, who blesseth humans with uncommonness and diversity of life on Earth.

The greenback turtles and other species that come to lay their eggs on the beaches of Chendor and elsewhere in the east coast states should as well be accorded respect and welcome fit for royalties in the human sphere.

Because they are the last bastions of their species that can perhaps rejuvenate their own population back into bigger numbers and help to restore the ecological balance, not just restoring the lost tourist numbers in the east coast states.

Turtle-watching, I remember was a popular event in the 1970’s until late 1980’s at the beaches of the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, especially of Chendor and Cherating in Pahang, and Rantau Abang in Terengganu. I remember watching the event sometime in late 1970.

Nowadays the word "dearth" perhaps correctly paints the non-event, as turtle killing, trappings and improper fishing had depleted and endangered their numbers.

And perhaps now we know that those illegal fishermen from overseas, like China, Vietnam and Phillipines, fishing illegally in our waters, had been depleting our natural resources, part of our tourist attractions, and condemning turtle eggs to hatcheries, and grown turtles to medicinal pots.

And that is not to say our own fishermen are innocent. There were and still are many cases of turtles found dead, caught in their nets. It is time that they learn to avoid fishing in waters where turtles feed and live.

After all, turtles and other creatures of the sea help to sustain the ecological balance in the vast waters of the oceans, that in the end will determine whether humankind will continue to exist or perish.

Tsunami, anyone?