There is no doubt that it has been an exceptional few weeks
here at Scuba Junkie. Sipadan has continued to prove itself as an extraordinary
place to dive. Our divers have been extremely lucky, and seen things that many
people can only dream of. Not only have thing been incredible under water, but
on land as well, with Turtles coming up to our beach laying eggs.
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| White Tip Reef Shark at Sipadan |
Just a few weeks ago our Sipadan boat returned to the jetty
with some incredible news. The divers had been lucky enough to see something
that is unfortunately, increasingly rare around the world, Schooling
Hammerheads. There are still a few places in the world where such a thing can
be seen, and we are lucky enough to have one just a 25minute boat ride away
from the Mabul Beach Resort. It was the last dive of the day and the two groups
had headed off the wall in the hope of catching just a glimpse of this shy and
graceful shark. The two dive groups were close together, hanging out in the
blue, and this is where everyone saw them. The advanced group were a little bit
deeper, and Khai, one of our experienced divemasters, said there were too many
Hammerheads to count. It was not just the advanced group who were lucky, the
open water group saw an incredible amount as well, and the school followed them
back to the wall! To see a school of Scalloped Hammerheads is the dream of many
divers, especially those who are based in this area and hear about encounters
such as this. Scalloped Hammerheads are incredibly shy, and extremely
endangered. It is thought that a ‘normal’ encounter with a Scalloped Hammerhead
in this area is to see a ‘scout’: a single adult male that comes up from the
school to investigate. It seems that although Hammerheads are shy, they are
curious, once they establish that we are not food or a threat, they swim away.
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| Manta Ray - photo taken by Scott Meyer |
The amazing diving we’ve had doesn’t stop there. Just a few
days later the same guides – Cat and Khai, had another extremely exciting
encounter. As they came towards the end of Barracuda Point – one of the most
famous dive sites around Sipadan, a Manta Ray (Manta Alfredi) swam up the wall
and stayed with them for several minutes. Videos show the elegant Manta Ray
gliding along the reef, seemingly at ease with the divers following it. While
there are a few islands around the world that have resident Manta Ray
populations, here we see them as they cruise by on their journeys around the
world. Sipadan sits where the continental shelf drops off, and is surrounded by
extremely deep water. We see a lot of interesting behaviour and activity at
this special island, and it is likely that the Manta Ray was stopping off for a
few days to be cleaned and to feed. Very little is known about Manta Rays, it
was only a few years ago that it was discovered that there are in fact two
species of Manta Ray – the Manta Birostris (the giant or Oceanic Manta) and the
Manta Alfredi (the reef Manta). Whilst research is being conducted on resident
Manta Rays, those who are more pelagic remain elusive. The underside of a Manta
Ray acts as a fingerprint, and photos of this are used to ID the Manta Rays.
One of our guests sent her ID photo of the Manta Ray to the Manta Trust, who
confirmed the Manta Ray had not been spotted before and so she could name it.
It is the first Manta Ray to have been ID-ed in Malaysian waters through this
scientific database, although many have been seen, an exciting contribution to
Manta Ray research. (To find out more visit www.mantatrust.org)
Also, the lucky bunch saw it twice in one day, as well as on the same dive an
encounter with a Scalloped Hammerhead…some people get all the luck!
As with many of the underwater creatures we love,
these gentle giants are globally under serious threat from over fishing and
by-catch and are in high demand for the Chinese medicine trade where their gill
rakers are thought to have healing qualities. Sadly, their populations are in
decline world-wide, so this is why we encourage responsible behaviour around
them, as well as getting people to upload their sightings for scientific
purposes. It is also why we have been working with the Manta Trust for the last
few years, specifically on what appear to be our resident Devil Ray populations
and we are in the process of setting up the ‘Malaysian Mobulid Project’ - more
on that to come!
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| Turtle Eggs |
It was not just underwater where we had exciting
things happening over the last few weeks. In the past fortnight, we’ve had not
one, not two, but three turtles come up and lay nests on Mabul island. People
from the local village alert Scuba Junkie so that the eggs can be safely
relocated to our Mabul Turtle Hatchery by our trained staff. Here they can be
monitored and the nests remain safe from predators or the actions of humans.
The first of our 3 laying turtles was a Hawksbill. The Mabul Turtle hatchery
was set up in 2012, and along with it an incredible incentive scheme so that nests
around the whole island could be protected. Scuba Junkie works closely with the
local community and if we are informed of a turtle coming up to lay eggs - under
very strict guidelines and for the increased protection of the nest - we will
relocate those eggs. If the nest can be left in Situ, then this is the best
policy but many times these nests are too close to the tide line or are within
the village area itself, making the chances of hatchling survival almost non-existent.
Once the area in which the female has come to lay is secured they are allowed
to nest naturally and return to the sea, only then are the eggs relocated. If
this is done to our strict guidelines we then donate RM10 to the local
community for every egg that is relocated safely to our hatchery. In an area
where there are poor communities and turtle eggs is sold for 2RM as food, it is
an amazing initiative and we have created an island of ‘rangers’ and give the
nests more worth then eating or selling them.
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| Relocating a nest |
Many of our
staff are fully trained in relocating the eggs so that no harm is done to them
and a high rate of hatching is ensured. Relocating a turtle nest is a
complicated process. A female turtle will use her hind flippers to dig a deep
hole for laying her eggs into and then will spend a lot of time camouflaging
the area. We must wait for her to return to the ocean, and then they can start
to find the eggs. Once the nest is found they must record how deep it is, so
they can recreate the original setting as much as possible. The eggs are
extremely carefully placed into a large bucket that has been filled with sand.
This is a highly delicate process, the eggs must not be turned or moved too
quickly and the greatest care is taken when relocating them. The buckets are
then carefully taken to our turtle hatchery and a new nest is dug for them, at
the same depth as their original home. They are cautiously placed back into the
sand and the nest filled up. Once the nest is relocated to our protected area,
they are given the best chance of survival, and after 6-8 weeks they hatch.
Once they hatch we take the tiny baby turtles to a few meters off the shore
line and watch them sprint into the ocean. The nest from this particular
Hawksbill Turtle had 131 eggs, which is an extremely high number…or so we
thought.
Just a week
or so later we receive a call at about 10pm that a Green Turtle was getting
ready to lay a nest on our beach. The nesting process is not a short one. A
female will take her time picking a spot to lay, and once she does so will spend
often over an hour, disguising where the nest is - so patience is key. Hours
after the call had been received; we relocated 150 eggs to our hatchery! A
record breaking amount. Just as they had finished relocating the eggs, another
call was received informing us that another Green Turtle had been seen on the
other side of the island. This time the nest had 151 eggs! We now have over 400
eggs in the Mabul Turtle Hatchery. They will be hatching in about 2months, so
maybe that’s something to consider if you’re thinking of visiting us soon! We
collect and correlate this data for future projects with external NGOs and this
project has proven to be very successful over the last few years.
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| Manta Alfredi - photo by Leanne Briscoe |
Facts about Manta Alfredi:
- · Manta Rays have the largest brains of all fish
- · Although they are large in size (up to 5.5m) they feed on the smallest organisms in the ocean
- · They are sometimes seen breaching out of the water, this could be for many reasons: clearing parasites off their body, a form of communication, to escape predators or just for fun
- · They can regenerate tissue after being attacked by predators
- · Eggs develop in a female manta ray for nearly a year, and just one pup is born at a time
- · The lifespan of a Manta Alfredi is unknown, but thought to be 40 years or more.
- · Threats include being caught a bycatch, becoming tangled in fishing lines or nets, or being caught to have their gill rakers sold in the Chinese medicine market.
- · Ingestion of plastic is also a big problem for Manta Rays
- · They are listed as ‘Vulnerable’ on the ICUN Red List
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