Turtle Survival

lax to non-existent for many years. To address
these issues, TSA and WCS staff are conducting
a sustained conservation education program in
the many villages that ring the sanctuary, along
with carrying out an intensive training course for
SSWS rangers.
Soft release holding pens are currently being
built deep within the sanctuary and well away
from its borders. Once completed, 300 captive
bred Star Tortoises will be ensconced behind
the high bamboo fences to become familiar
with their surroundings before being liberated.
Additional groups of tortoises are slated to join
them in the coming years with the ultimate goal
of restoring the Star Tortoise as a functional
member of the biota at SSWS.
BURMESE ROOFED TURTLE CONSERVATION
AND REINTRODUCTION
Great strides were also made this year in
Burmese Roofed Turtle conservation. Considered
one of the most critically endangered turtles
in the world, wild Burmese Roofed Turtles are
now confined to a remote stretch of the upper
Chindwin River where less than 10 adult females
and an unknown number of males cling precariously
to survival.
There is no doubt the species would have
gone the way of the Dodo had not an integrated
in situ and ex situ conservation program been
implemented by TSA and WCS in 2006. Combining
an assurance colony at the Mandalay Zoo
with an egg collection and headstarting program
along the upper Chindwin River slowly brought
the number of surviving Roofed Turtles up to
almost 700 by 2015.
Given this numerical buffer against biological
extinction, we felt the time had come to return
headstarted Roofed Turtles into the wild. From
2012 into 2014, we conducted a wide-ranging assessment
of potential release areas and ultimately
identified two areas where the reintroduction
of Roofed Turtles is likely to succeed. The first
is a stretch of the upper Chindwin River near
Limpha Village, already inhabited by several
nesting females. The second is along the Nam
Thalet Chaung, a relatively pristine tributary of
the Chindwin that merges into the main river
near Htamanthi.
Once the release areas were identified, the
first task was to move 160 headstarted Roofed
Turtles from the Mandalay Zoo to our remote
basecamp in Limpha Village. Sixty of these
turtles would be returned to the wild, while the
remaining 100 were destined for an assurance
colony being established at the headquarters of
Forest Department rangers and TSA/WCS field staff release headstarted Burmese Star Tortoises into a holding pen at
Minzontaung Wildlife Sanctuary. Tortoises are provided with food – succulent vegetation – for the first few weeks after being
placed in the pen, but quickly learn to forage for themselves. PHOTO CREDIT: ME ME SOE
Htamanthi Wildlife Sanctuary.
Getting the turtles to Limpha Village was
a weeklong ordeal involving an overland truck
journey along rutted jungle tracks awash in mud,
followed by a 160 km boat trip up the Chindwin
River.
Upon arriving at Limpha, the turtles were
immediately released into two large concrete
grow-out ponds and given a month to recuperate
from their arduous journey. In the meantime, we
constructed soft release holding pens on beaches
along the Chindwin River and Nam Thalet
Chaung.
Given that few reintroductions of river
turtles have ever been attempted and there
was virtually nothing in the scientific literature
to guide our efforts, we designed a simple
experiment to test the efficacy of penning to
diminish post-release dispersal – two groups
of 30 turtles would be released at each site; 15
would be released immediately without being
penned, while the remaining 15 would be held
for 30 days in a riverside pen and then set free.
VHF radio transmitters were attached to 15
turtles, with seven or eight of those within two
groups destined to be liberated in each river,
giving us the ability to track their post-release
movements.
COMMUNITY CELEBRATES THE RETURN OF
‘AIKE’ OCCUPANTS
The release of Burmese Roofed Turtle came
first at the village of Limpha, and later at a beach
along the Nam Thalet Chaung. Release ceremonies
at both sites were well attended by government
officials and crowds of villagers. Following
talks by TSA/WCS team members, the turtles
were ceremonially ‘donated’ to attending Buddhist
monks who then blessed them before being
either being released into the river or placed in a
holding pen.
Thirty days later, the pens were opened and
within hours the turtles began to disperse. On
the Chindwin River, most turtles moved only
1-2 km up- or downstream from the release site,
many taking up residence in deep holes, called
aikes in Burmese, that according to local lore,
once harbored resident Roofed Turtles. On the
Nam Thalet Chaung, one turtle swam over 30
km to the confluence with the Chindwin River
before it disappeared. This turtle was the exception,
as the others simply found the nearest
aike and took up residence. As on the Chindwin
River, local fishermen assured us that these same
aikes were home to Roofed Turtles in the not so
distant past.
Although it is still too early to judge the
a publication of the turtle survival alliance 31 visit us online at www.turtlesurvival.org