What can we do for tuntung (river terrapin)

Tuntung or Batagur baska is fished and traded to prepare a popular delicacy for its medicinal properties. It is believed that consuming the flesh and soup helps to detoxify the body from harmful impurities. This is one of the reasons of human activities apart from dam construction and sand quarrying that destroys nesting grounds and endangers the terrapin besides illegal trading of its eggs. However, water pollution remains the main threat to the tuntung in addition to soil erosion.

As a measure to conserve the reptile, a captive-breeding programme was initiated in 1968 by the Perak Game Department and today at the River Terrapin Conservation Centre in Bota Kanan, Perak. Captived tuntung breed from the month of August to October compared to the mid-October to early March duration for tuntung breed in the wild. The average nest size is around 26 eggs but figures recorded at the centre have reached a high of 39 eggs as well as a low of 4 eggs.

Adult pond

Eggs are collected from nests along the riverbanks of the Perak River as well as from the landing grounds for females in captivity throughout the nesting season and transferred to the more organised hatching ground or incubated in polystyrenes. The latter provides a more constant temperature that achieves a higher success rate of hatchings at the rate of 65 to 70 days while the former requires 70 to 100 days as the eggs are submerged in water during rainy days. Tuntung produces soft-shell eggs, which are elongated in shape and white in colour buried in nests as deep as one foot in the sands, ranging from 45 to 65 grams each in weight. Newly hatched terrapins are placed in nursing ponds for 6 months before they are released into the wild to increase their chances of survival.

The landing ground beside the adult pond.


The hatching ground, where the eggs are
arranged in clusters.


The baby pond.

Telling apart female and male terrapins can be quite interesting. Females usually have a larger carapace, a shorter tail and brown retinas while males have white retinas. And both have 4 claws on all feet. Naturally, their daily diets consist of fish, snails, fruits, aquatic plants and organisms while they are fed kangkong (water crest), banana, fresh fish and fish pellets at the centre.

Female adult terrapin

Male adult: close-up view

Currently, the centre has less than 500 terrapins as one release estimates around 300 to 1, 000 terrapins. Theoretically by research, the reptile can reach a ripe old age of 100 and so far the centre has tuntung as old as 40 years of age. It is indeed good luck to receive turtle figurines or symbols as gifts on special occasions. This signifies the receiver is wished well of longevity. And hopefully, this does not involve any cooking pot.

How to get there: The centre is located at Bota Kanan Village in the Perak Tengah district approximately 44km southwest of Ipoh city. The one-hectare establishment sits on the right of Perak River bank.

Plus points of visit:

• Entrance is free!

• The centre also displays a mini showcase at the lobby and equipped with a lecture theatre and a laboratory;

• You are required to take off your shoes for the (squeaky clean) indoor tour;

• There is a guest book for you to mark your visit ;)

• The centre also has sea terrapins (Callagur borneonsis);

• And the friendly staff will be able to guide you for the outdoor tour to the ponds and breeding grounds and furnish you with the interesting facts and figures that you would like to know, complete with live exhibits, just like your stimulating ‘show and tell’ session at school.

Interesting fact: Do you know that river terrapins are a picky lot that they choose specific grain size (of sands) for their nests?

More abstracts from Wiki:

• River terrapins are found in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Peninsular Malaysia (Kedah, Perak and Terengganu), Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Sumatra, Indonesia, Cambodia and China.
  

• The River Terrapin is categorised as a critically endangered species internationally under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species (also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data List). Established in 1963, it is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species based upon precise criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies relevant to all species and all regions of the world. Being the world's main authority on the conservation status of species, the IUCN highlights the urgency of conservation issues to the public and policy makers, as well as help the international community to try to reduce species extinction.
  

References:
River Terrapin Conservation Centre, Bota Kanan, Perak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangrove_terrapin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_Red _List