© Marcus Teoh ZY. All rights reserved.

The best thing about these trips is that people come to us, without much knowledge of the turtles, and wanting to learn about them. Giving briefings to these people who are genuinely interested to find out more about what the society does, and how they could, in turn, help us, has been the highlight of my weekends. As they learn more about our challenges in securing sufficient funding to operate the society and conduct turtle-related activities, they step out and give really helpful suggestions on who we could approach, and we could go about doing it.

Those who are not in a position to recommend us any corporate sponsors would instead go home and tell their family, neighbors, friends and colleagues about us, and this helps us in a great way too :D

I am a little saddened that the fourth and last Turtle Discovery Trip is coming too soon. It had been a great pleasure hosting the participants and sharing our little world of turtles with them.

Notes:
If you would like to participate in our guided Turtle Discovery Trip (more info about the trip here), please send us an email at contactus@turtleconservationsociety.org.my. A minimum party of 8 pax is required.

* * * * * * * * * *

Participants of the third Turtle Discovery Trip were very lucky because we threw in an additional activity! A total of 200 one-month-old river terrapin hatchlings were released into the Kemaman River in an inaugural World Turtle Day celebration in Kemaman. World Turtle Day is celebrated on the 23rd May of every year, and what better way to celebrate it than with a big group of turtle enthusiasts from KL, Singapore, Melaka and Kuala Terengganu?

© Marcus Teoh ZY. All rights reserved.

It warms my heart that some 100 people including the local villagers and visitors turned up for the release ceremony. The police were invited, the Village Development and Security Committee members were present, the “terrapin gang” members were there with their respective family members, and even the Department of Wildlife and National Parks officer came to the event!

© Marcus Teoh ZY. All rights reserved.

Words cannot describe how lucky and thankful I am for the opportunity to work alongside some very dedicated people :D It has been pure joy, and I look forward to working with them again next year :D

© Marcus Teoh ZY. All rights reserved.

To the villagers who could be reading this: Semoga anda semua panjang umur dan murah rezeki! :D (May you all be blessed with good health and abundance in life)

One of our first public outreach projects is a Turtle Discovery Trip, which will be offered in the four weekends in May. We put together this program to give the public an introduction to the different turtles in Malaysia, the research and conservation project carried out by TCS in Kemaman, as well as an opportunity to watch sea turtles nest.

This trip is priced at RM 180 per person, and TCS members as well as children/youth below 18 years old are entitled to a 20% discount.

The trip includes:

• A visit to the Turtle Sanctuary in Cherating, where you could read some posters, check out some preserved/dry exhibits and buy some souvenirs, if you wished;
• A visit to the River Terrapin Conservation Project, where you would be briefed about the work that TCS is carrying out with the cooperation of the local villagers; and
• An opportunity to watch sea turtles nest.

Newly-emerged river terrapin hatchlings. © Chen Pelf Nyok.

Not included in the trip are:

• Your transport from KL/elsewhere to Cherating/Kemaman
• Accommodation in Cherating/Kemaman
• Meals while in Cherating/Kemaman

For your convenience, following are a few hotels in/around Kemaman. As there are various types of rooms available, you are advised to make your own hotel arrangements.

• Awana Kijal Beach Spa and Golf Resort (09 – 864 1188)

• Hotel Home2 Kemaman (09 – 858 2333)
• 
River Garden Hotel Kemaman (09 – 859 6337)
• 
Sri Kemaman Inn (09 – 859 1511)
• 
Villa Homestay Kemaman (09 – 858 1919)

This post is cross-posted on the Turtle Conservation Society of Malaysia’s website:
Join our Turtle Discovery Trip!

Notes:

• There are approximately 289 species of freshwater turtles and tortoises in the world, of which 18 species are native to Malaysia. Two species are listed as “Critically Endangered” and on this trip, you will be able to get up close with one of them.
• Four species of sea turtles nest in Malaysia, i.e. Leatherback turtles, Green turtles, Hawksbill turtles and Olive Ridley turtles. On this trip, you will witness the nesting process of a Green turtle.

P/S: I took my Mum, Aunt and two cousins on the Turtle Discovery Trip in July 2011, and they loved it. Check out some photo here.

The Student Conference on Conservation Science is the only international conference aimed entirely at students. It helps young conservation scientists gain experience, learn new ideas and make contacts that will be valuable for their future careers. Over the past 11 years, we have hosted over 1,750 delegates from 108 countries worldwide.
- Student Conference on Conservation Science (SCCS) website

I proposed to talk about how the local villagers in Setiu have been collecting all the river terrapin eggs for consumption for decades, which led to zero hatchling production; how we hired a local villager to purchase as many river terrapin eggs from the egg collectors as possible and incubate the eggs; and how hatchlings were captive-raised for one to three years before they were released into the Setiu River.

Anyway, I have just received an email from the Conference Administrator that my talk has been accepted and the BETTER news is that I am also offered a bursary! :D Which means that my return air tickets and accommodation will all be paid for!

Having been working on the research and conservation of the river terrapins since 2004, I am really grateful for the opportunity to attend the international student conference which would allow me to broaden my horizon and provide a very important platform for me to meet leading conservation scientists. Also, I am looking forward to interacting with other conservation science students from around the world to share and exchange relevant knowledge, ideas and experiences.

I can’t wait! :D

P/S: Many thanks to Meg for alerting me about the conference; J for brainstorming ideas with me; and Prof. Chan for giving me the green light to do this. I appreciate it much.

So on Sunday, Oct 3rd, Prof. Chan, Lim, Meg and I arrived at MPH Mid Valley at about 1pm to make the necessary preparations for the book launch which would begin at 3pm. We rearranged the sofas for VIPs and chairs for attendees, brought out the launch gimmick and registration papers, decorated the rostrum with origami turtles, set up and looped the slideshow, tested the PA system, arranged copies of “Little Turtle Messenger” on the desks, and we were pretty much ready by 2pm :D

Friends started arriving a little past 2pm, and our invited VIPs, which included Tan Sri Dr. Salleh Mohd. Nor, the co-founder of Turtle Conservation Centre, Tan Sri Mustaffa Babjee and Dato’ Dr. Dino Sharma, Executive Director of WWF-Malaysia arrived shortly after. And by 3pm, we had had quite a big crowd!

And being the punctual emcee *clears throat* I started the event at 3:05pm by thanking everybody who attended the event though it was a Sunday (read: family day).

Aiyoh, please pardon the way I stand. My right knee was hurting and I had to stand on my left leg, LOL.

In her speech, Prof. Chan thanked the very long list of people who had made writing and publishing the book possible, as well as all who had, in one way or another, helped sell more than 1,000 copies of the book in 3 months. In case you’re wondering, the book was first printed in June 2010, and the second printing was ordered in September 2010.

I don’t think I have ever attended a book launch, but when I was standing on the stage, I could tell that it was jam-packed, in a good way :D There were smiling faces everywhere as well as approving nods from parents and grandparents.

The launch gimmick was an interesting one :D The props included Maya, the stuffed puppet and the turtle that brought Maya to the amazing journey underwater. During the launch, Yi Sin the illustrator held Maya in her hands, and our VIPs lifted the flap on the carapace of the turtle, to reveal a copy of “Little Turtle Messenger” secured on the underside of the flap.

After the launch (actually, even during the launch), people were queueing to buy copies of the book. I don’t know, I think within an hour plus, all the books that we had earlier on placed on the desk and racks were sold out. Pija, our ever-helpful MPH staff, had to replenish the the books.

Also after the launch, Lim our origamist extraordinaire, conducted a turtle origami session with those who were interested.

I would like to thank all my friends and juniors who attended the book launch. Thank you so very much for your undying support, it means a lot to me (though I’m not the one who wrote the book) :D I will not attempt to list everybody down because it is quite a long list, but special thanks and appreciation goes to Jacky Phang for volunteering to be our official event photographer. In fact, all pictures used in this post was taken by Jacky. More pictures of the event can be found here (by Jacky Phang), here (by Jeremy Teoh) and here (by Prof. Chan).

So what have I been doing lately? Apart from work-related stuff, not much, LOL.

I celebrated World Turtle Day in Kg. Mangkok, Setiu by releasing some 60 head-started river terrapins into the Setiu River with the local kids. You should have seen those smiles on their faces! Priceless, I tell you! Then, sometime in mid-June, I started promoting “Little Turtle Messenger”, a children’s story book which is written by my project partner.

“Little Turtle Messenger” tells of how a little girl was brought to a Turtle Village in her dream. In the Turtle Village, she saw only very few old turtles and she immediately realizes why — the people in her village had been eating turtle eggs for as long as she knew. She promised to help bring back a happy Turtle Village. The next day, she shared her story with her friends, and she was also invited to tell her story in other schools. She became very famous and known as the “Little Turtle Messenger”.

The story book has a very strong message on turtle conservation and it has really pretty illustrations. It will make a very brilliant gift for children between 7 and 12 years old. Each copy costs only RM 12.90 and proceeds from the sale of the books will be used to support turtle conservation projects that my project partner and I carry out. If you’re interested to know more about the “Little Turtle Messenger” or to buy one or a few copies of the book, please leave me a comment or send me an email at turtlecentre@gmail.com :D

At the end of June, we launched the Mini Turtle Museum in Kg. Mangkok, Setiu. We have spent close to 6 months setting up a mini turtle museum in the old community hall that we rented in the village. Now our Mini Turtle museum has a wide variety of displays — sea turtle shells, terrapins shells, sea turtle Siamese twins that didn’t make it, hatched turtle egg shells as well as a series of posters with a brief description of our research and conservation work in the Setiu River.

After the launch, we conducted 5 Turtle Camps in primary schools that are located near the Setiu River. We went to the schools one day after another and it was very tiring, but very meaningful too :D And then I brought my Mum to Brisbane to visit my sister who is currently studying at the University of Queensland. We spent 8 days in cold Brissie weather and came home to a hot and humid Malaysia, much to my annoyance, LOL. And now, we are running more Turtle Camps in Kemaman and Dungun as well as conducting river surveys in 7 rivers in Terengganu.

I know, I’m sooo behind time I have yet to finish talking about my trip to India (which was in April/May!!) and I really should get to it. Apologies to those who have been waiting for those posts, sorry yeah, Ah Hong :D