Islanders work to protect sea turtles

HAIKOU — Huang Cheng's patrol was an ordinary one, until he came across a sea turtle crawling on the beach and its nest. He was so excited by the discovery that he took a video and sent it to his father. "Look dad! The first mother sea turtle of this year has come ashore on Beidao Island and laid eggs," he said.

Huang, 42, is the director of the residents' committee of Beidao residential community of Sansha city on the island province of Hainan. His father, Huang Hongbo, has been protecting sea turtles for more than five decades.

At age 15, the junior Huang started following in his father's footsteps and has been assisting with sea turtle protection on the island.

"Perhaps my father saw her off through the waves when she was just a baby turtle, and now that she has returned as a mother, it's my turn to welcome her home," he said.

In fact, a sea turtle's life journey is fraught with danger.

According to Huang, out of every 1,000 sea turtle hatchlings that swim into the ocean, only one will make it to adulthood. Despite traveling thousands of miles, turtles that survive still return to their nesting grounds to breed, relying on Earth's magnetic field to guide them.

Statistics show that over the past seven years, 637 sea turtle nests with eggs have been found on Beidao, which is part of the Xisha Islands. The Beidao nests account for 37 percent of the total discovered on the islands.

The Xisha Islands are an important habitat for green sea turtles. In China, 90 percent of its sea turtle population resides in the South China Sea, and more than 80 percent are green sea turtles. Beidao is considered to be the largest green sea turtle nesting ground in China.

Since the 1980s, due to factors such as long-term overfishing, illegal trade, marine pollution and climate change, the number of sea turtles and their habitats have declined worldwide. All sea turtles have been listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Appendix I.

In February 2021, China's revised national list of key protected wild animals included five species of sea turtles as national Class-A key protected wild animals.

For decades, many local people like the Huang family have endeavored to protect sea turtles.

In addition to the daily maintenance of island facilities and dealing with community work, they perform tasks such as patrolling the islands and reefs, planting trees, cleaning sea garbage and feeding rescued turtles.

Zhang Ting is a sea turtle researcher from Hainan Normal University who is considered by the fishermen on the island to be one of the "local experts" on sea turtles.

"I follow the sea turtles every day to learn about their living habits and to see them lay eggs," she said.

The various experiences shared by "experts" like herself have enriched her knowledge about sea turtles.

One of the other "local experts" is the elder Huang. Zhang still remembers how he would carefully prepare food each day to feed baby sea turtles in poor health.

"Every day, he carried seawater to clean the rescued turtles, changed the water in the pool and gave them medicine," she recalled.

Zhang brought special medicines to the island to treat ailing turtles. She also taught local fishermen scientific methods they could use to rescue and protect the reptiles, and how to avoid injuring them as they fish.

In 2021, the Beidao sea turtle protection center was established. Scientific research teams from Xiamen University, Sun Yat-sen University, Hainan Normal University and the South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences have set up laboratories or research bases on the island, where experts have conducted research on the status of the green sea turtle population, sea turtle ecology and conservation biology.

"With the support and help of the local government, we have conducted research on 11 islands and reefs in the Xisha Islands," Zhang said. "We have comprehensively surveyed the survival situation of sea turtles and obtained a lot of precious data and samples."

Over the past few years, Sansha has gradually established a scientific system for sea turtle protection, and has formulated and issued several protection plans and regulations. Authorities have implemented a 24-hour monitoring and protection mechanism for sea turtles that come ashore to lay eggs. According to official figures, after years of protection and ecological restoration, 1,734 nests with green sea turtle eggs were found in Xisha Islands from 2017 to last year.

Xinhua