China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Sea turtle population surges on islands
Ganquan Island used to be a haven for seafarers sailing along the ancient maritime Silk Road as it is one of two islands in the South China Sea that has underground fresh water.
The island has been inhabited by Chinese fishermen for hundreds of years, and a dozen are still living there, but they are outnumbered by another resident: green sea turtles.
Located in the west of China’s Xisha archipelago, Ganquan, which literally means “sweet spring”, is an ideal location for sea turtles due to its fine-sand beach and the large mass of coral reef surrounding the island.
In a pool not far from the beach, hundreds of turtles vie for small fish thrown to them by Li Yanfen, 33, a worker with the local sea turtle preservation station, run by the island’s community.
“We have 800 turtles to take care of,” Li said.
Li was a fisherman in the port town of Tanmen in China’s southernmost province of Hainan, more than 300 kilometers from Xisha. He came to Ganquan as a turtle breeder when the preservation station was established in 2013.
“The breeding season for sea turtles runs from April to October. We patrol the beach daily looking for turtle nests that are too close to the sea. If we find any, we dig out the eggs and take them to the station,” Li said. “If not, high tides will submerge the nests and ruin the eggs.”
At the station, the eggs are placed in buckets full of sand, and hatch after 45 to 60 days.
“In their natural environment, the hatching rate of the turtle eggs is about 10 percent, but the rate can be as high as 80 percent at the station,” Li said.
Living on fish, the captive turtles can grow to between 0.5 and 0.8 kilograms in six months.
“Their shells will be hard enough by that time to guard them against their predators such as birds, crabs and fish. So when we release them into the sea, their survival rates are much higher,” he said.
In the past four years, Li and his colleagues have bred about 2,000 turtles and released more than 1,000 into the sea.
The turtles used to be abundant in Xisha, but due to years of excessive hunting, their numbers dropped drastically.
In 1989, China listed the species under State protection and has since improved measures to crack down on the capture and trade of sea turtles and their eggs.
After Sansha was established in 2012, the city government issued a strict ban on turtle poaching in all areas under its jurisdiction, including Xisha, while educating local fishermen on the protection of the rare species.
Since then, poaching has plummeted, and local fishermen voluntarily take up the job of turtle protection.
In 2015, the community of Xisha’s Beidao Island also set up a sea turtle preservation station. Huang Hongbo and his two sons are among the 15 fishermen who have patrolled the island during the past two years to protect the turtles.
“If we find turtle nests on the beach, we set up wooden signs to alert local fishermen to be careful and not harm them,” said Huang, 65, head of the sea turtle preservation station. “We also patrol along the beach to prevent poachers from stealing turtle eggs.”
Huang said turtles often crawl up onto the beach at night with the tide.
“Female turtles choose soft sand, dig holes with their flippers and then lay eggs inside. Each egg is the size of a ping-pong ball,” Huang said.
In 2016, Huang and his colleagues found more than 160 turtle nests on the island.
“The sea turtles have fixed hatching places. They will lay eggs in the place where they were incubated,” he said. “It’s great to see increasing numbers of turtles coming to our island to breed.”