A record-high 24 female green sea turtles laid eggs on Orchid Island (蘭嶼, Lanyu) this year, with 83 hatchlings counted as of Wednesday evening, a National Taiwan Ocean University research team said, calling the development “heartening.”
The university’s College of Life Sciences dean Cheng I-Jiunn (程一駿) said the green sea turtle population has increased in the past five years, because they were protected both on Orchid Island, where local residents do not hunt turtles for food, and in the seas near the south of Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, where the turtles travel to after laying eggs on Orchid Island.
Cheng said the university’s team has conducted research in Orchid Island’s Siaobadai Bay (小八代灣) in late June or July every year since 1997, and according to their observations, female green sea turtles usually return to the same area to lay eggs every four to six years.
The number of turtles the team has observed has risen from a yearly average of 10 in the past five years to 24 so far this year.
One female turtle identified as No. 3934, which was last recorded visiting Orchid Island six years ago, was temporarily trapped in a bush after laying and burying her eggs, Cheng said, adding that the team and local volunteers worked for two hours to free the turtle from its predicament.
According to Cheng, No. 3934’s eggs were dug up by other female turtles and five were broken in the process, while researchers saved the rest.
The Siabadai Bay team hopes to increase turtle numbers by digging up eggs and moving them to a more elevated area, so that they are not crushed by other turtles as they arrive later, Cheng said.
The team examined all of the 83 hatchlings and released them into the sea, Cheng said.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
RSS