I know. I should have blogged about this earlier but was too caught up with the Blogathon. And then the trip back home to Melaka. And then the piling workload upon my return. Three excuses enough or not?

Hhehehe :)

Remember the day I broke my windscreen? No, I didn’t break it, somebody else did, or rather SOMETHING else did. Yea, we were on our way to the State Museum to witness the official opening ceremony of the 2-month-long exhibition on “turtles”.

The official opening ceremony was conducted at the balcony on the first floor of the museum. I had never been to the museum prior to this visit, and I had NO idea how big it was (I still have no idea). Some VIPs gave some long-winded speeches which I believed nobody really paid much attention to, considering the majority of the audience were school kids from nearby primary schools.

After the speeches and the souvenir-giving ceremony, we were all ushered into the main display room where all the turtle exhibits were put up. BIG MISTAKE. The school kids were practically pushing each other and some smaller sized ones were being pushed against poster panels. There were just too many kids running around in the display room and they were talking yelling noisily and touching many of the specimens. Didn’t they know that the specimens on display were NOT to be touched?!

Some of the bigger posters that document the ancient relationship between turtles and human beings were put on display. You would be as amazed as I was when I read those poems and what-nots. The locals, despite the traditional practice of consuming turtle eggs, have a very close-knit relationship with the turtles *rolls eyes* But what really caught my attention was this one st*pid poster produced by a government agency. On the top of the A0-sized poster was a clear-cut question “Why should we conserve the terrapins?” and following this question was a list of st*pid answers, but the only one I remember was “Because a terrapin egg contains nutrients as much as 7 times that of a chicken egg.” *smacks forehead*

Hello?! I thought we are all on the same boat, i.e. trying to educate the public on the importance of conserving the turtles so that they do NOT consume them?!

This skeleton was borrowed from my Supervisor, as well as quite a number of other specimens and posters. The museum authorities did not put up a “DO NOT TOUCH” sign. Neither did they make a cover for all these specimens. The school kids were seen touching the skeleton and pushing against the perspex casing that I had to stand there to warn them to keep their hands off the specimens.

The collectibles that were put on display was almost as big as my own personal collection :( But then again, I am not sure if I would be willing to lend them my personal collection because like it or not, sometimes the things that we lend do NOT come back to us.

The above picture shows some of the tagging equipments used in tagging the sea turtles. The turtles are tagged to differentiate each and every one of them so that their movement, behaviour and survival (or mortality) can be observed and recorded. It is basically the same as to why your parents name you. If you cannot think of a reason now, I’ll give you one: to differentiate between your siblings and you *winks* If not, what? Do you think it is easy to come up with a name that your child will NEVER regret for the rest of his/her life? Kekekeke :) The sea turtles are usually tagged on both front flippers because the probability of losing both is lower. Scientists are smart, no?

And this shows a Turtle Excluder Device, or commonly known as T.E.D. – not her husband Ted though *winks* It serves to exclude turtles expecially if they are caught in trawl nets. There is an opening at the end of the net (on the left in the picture) that is big enough for the turtles to swim out. Another smart invention, huh? But unfortunately we are NOT using it in Malaysia due to its high cost and the fact that we Malaysians prefer to use illegal nets, like the large-mesh sunken gill net.

The leatherbacks is the LARGEST extant turtle that roams the world’s oceans. It is only right that leatherback eggs are also the largest among the remaining 7 species, no? And yea, no prizes for correctly guessing the smallest species of sea turtles :)

Some live specimens were also displayed. Shown in the above picture are green turtle hatchlings. We went downstairs for some refreshments because we thought that there would be some food left for us. Another BIG MISTAKE.

Anyway, the turtle exhibition will be opened to the public until September 5th. Anyone is interested? *smiles*