Green Turtle

Green Turtle eating seagrass

Green Turtles are the plant eaters among sea turtles, feeding mainly on algae and seagrasses in the warm and shallow tropical and subtropical waters around the world. The shell or carapace of an adult Green Turtle may measure up to 120cm in length and they can live to nearly 60 years old in the wild. Their name comes from the distinctive green flesh developed from pigment left over from their green plant diets; the saying ‘you are what you eat’ couldn’t be truer than in the Green Turtle. They can often be seen devouring algae growing over the corals on the reef or majestically grazing on the sandy sea floor amongst the seagrass beds. It is not unknown for individual Green Turtles to have favourite feeding grounds and sleeping sites to which they return day after day and night after night. During the nesting season however, the males and females will migrate away from their regular feeding grounds and head home to their natal beaches where they themselves hatched. Found in the waters of 140 countries the turtle has its most prolific nesting sites in Tortuguero, Costa Rica, Raine Island, Australia and the southern coast of Oman with an annual 22,500, 18,000, and 6,000 nesting females respectively. On the island of Borneo the beaches of Sabah province are Malaysia’s primary nesting site with around 3,800 nesting females every year, nevertheless, other sites in Sarawak and peninsular Malaysia heavily contribute to the national total with another 2,000 and 690 nesting females yearly.

In the Perhentians the mature Green Turtles will congregate in the shallows of their natal beaches between the months of April and August to mate and nest. After a vigourous courtship the females will wait until the right evening to haul their massive bodies up onto the sand and into the treeline to lay her clutch. Creating a large body pit with her fore flippers and a deeper still incubation chamber with her rear flippers, she is ready to begin laying while in her trance like state. Anywhere between 90 and 120 ping pong ball sized eggs will be laid in a single clutch and each females will usually lay around 300-400 eggs in several nests each season. After she finishes laying her eggs she proceeds to bury her undeveloped offspring and moves the body pit slowly away from the location of the nest to deter and confuse any predators The whole process from leaving the water to heading back down off the sand may take as little as 90 minutes or it could take all night.

The Green Turtle was once a vastly abundant species of sea turtle but their numbers have been steadily dwindling over the past few centuries. Previously described as being so numerous that they were like a field of stepping stones floating in the ocean, the early European sailboats exploring the Caribbean exploited and decimated the Green Turtles as if they were in unlimited supply. The rich and nutritious meat of the Green Turtle was the perfect source of food for sailors as it could be kept fresh for a long time and contained lots of vitamin C. Villagers flipped females onto their backs as they came onto the beaches to nest and sold them to the sailboats, where they were kept alive in the hulls until needed by the crew at sea. The green meat was full of vitamin C from the turtle’s extensive plant diet and helped prevent many a sailor from developing Scurvy.

The biggest threat to these Green Turtles in recent years, particularly in Malaysia, has become poaching. With poaching of eggs in some beaches wiping out 100% of nests, it stands to reason that their populations are not only declining in numbers but consistently failing to be replaced. Factor in the reckless amount turtles killed each year as by-catch from the fishing industry through shrimp trawlers, long-lining and gill nets and it begins to paint a not-so-nice picture. The natural rate of survivorship of a hatchling turtle to adulthood is around 1/1,000, but since humans have been on the scene it has dropped tenfold to about 1/10,000. In the last 50 years, numbers of Green Turtles in Malaysia have fallen by 80%, leaving only a fraction of the turtles that once were. Now considered an endangered species worldwide, it is crucial that conservation efforts are continued, expanded and upheld in order to stop the Green Turtle drifting closer towards what is ultimately extinction. The Green Turtle may take 25 years to reach maturity and finally give birth itself, so a long term approach to any advances in Green Turtle protection are just as important as the short term. There is still hope that if we don’t leave it too late, one day populations of Green Turtles will rise again and conservationists will see the long term rewards of their hard work and dedication.