OUR TURTLE PROJECT'S
Our Sea Turtle Center program aims to protect sea turtle eggs and increase hatching rates. Some of our staff patrols the beach all night looking for mother sea turtles that come out of the ocean to lay their eggs. Protect the mother turtle during the nesting process and when she is finished laying the eggs and safely back in the ocean, we relocate the eggs from the beach to our hatchery.
This is done concerning threats that endanger the eggs in their original nesting locations such as erosion, traffic of tourists, dogs, crabs, birds and irresponsible human action.
The sea turtle eggs take 45-60 days to develop and hatch. When the baby sea turtles hatch we want to return them to their natural habitat quickly. We release them to the ocean only in the late evening which is having minimum disturbance from the birds, crabs,dogs,etc…
You can join in the baby turtle release and release your own baby turtle into the ocean. We welcome local and international visitors to share the experience of the baby sea turtle release for education and awareness of sea turtle issues.
In addition to this, a large number of turtles which were sick or injured by fishing nets were treated and cured and released to the ocean.
OUR FACILITY'S
| THE HISTORY & DEVELOPMENT EFFORT | ||
| Our turtle hatchery is one of the oldest turtle conservation projects in Sri Lanka which started more than 30 years ago and we do continuous explorations on Turtles. We not only protect the eggs but also join activities with the Police and local community to educate everyone on protecting Turtles. We always share our knowledge and findings with the public. We provide information for NARA on our findings. | ||
| “From my childhood I was attached with Turtle activities and I m passionate about the welfare and future of turtles. My second ambition other than my family is to protect these fascinating creatures with utmost care by developing this conservation effort with the help of local and international Turtle lovers.” Shantha Fernando – the Manager of the project |
OUR TURTLES
We are having 4 species of Turtles out of 5 species available in Sri Lanka. In addition the very rare “ White Turtle” which is found once in a million number of Turtles is with us under utmost care.
OUR REQUIREMENTS
Money for buying Turtle Eggs from local fishermenMore Tanks for baby turtles, adult turtles and disabled ones under treatment,Water Pumps To get our own vehicle (Three wheeler, Dimo Batta or anything of low budget) to fulfill our transport requirements especially when we need to attend to turtles who were injured
PUBLIC NOTICE
When you come to our Sea Turtle Conservation Centre, Please do not hold the adult turtles by hand since that make them weak. Please do not use flash when taking pictures of the baby sea turtles, to protect their eyesight.