Setiu River Terrapin Recovery Project

This project was initiated in 2004 when Chan was attached to Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. It is now continued under Turtle Conservation Society of Malaysia.

The objective of the Setiu River Terrapin Recovery Project is to rehabilitate the severely depleted population of river terrapins (Batagur affinis) in the Setiu River.

Seed money for this project was awarded by the US-based Turtle Conservation Fund (TCF) and Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA). We take this opportunity to thank them for the grants and for maintaining a keen interest in the development of the project. The results of the various aspects of the project have been presented in international conferences in Beijing, Hong Kong, Stellenbosch (South Africa), San Diego, Tucson, Ohio (US) and Manaus (Brazil) and locally in Malaysia as well.

The project involves the purchase of river terrapin eggs from local egg collectors, incubation of the eggs and head-starting the hatchlings for release in an event we call “Terrapin Independence Day (TID).” All the terrapins are microchipped for individual identification before release. The first 500 microchips were donated by theCleveland Metroparks Zoo and second 300 units by Aquaria KLCC, both of which are gratefully acknowledged.

The following table shows the number of eggs that have been purchased for incubation, number of river terrapins that have been hatched and released since 2004. Also included are the number of terrapins that have died and/or escaped.

Year	No. of eggs incubated	No. of hatchlings	No. of terrapins released	No. of terrapins escaped/died
TOTAL	2,491	1,446	1,286	160
2004	365	236	222	14
2005	278	147	131	16
2006	384	275	252	23
2007	229	180	155	25
2008	245	139	105	34
2009	301	201	161	40
2010	91	60	55	5
2011	93	-	-	-
2012	227	180	178	2
2013	138	28	27	1
2014	140

Acknowledgements:
We would like to thank the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) for financially supporting this project in 2011 and 2012.

@http://www.turtleconservationsociety.org.my/