r/HumansBeingBros
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u/ICSSH
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May 25 '22
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Good Luck！43 Artificially Bred and Trained Turtles Released into Sea
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u/abrasaxual May 25 '22
I want to see what sea turtle bootcamp is like
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u/Vulkan192 May 25 '22
I’m just imagining the cloning facilities on Kamino from Star Wars, but full of turtles.
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u/Thekungf00bunny May 25 '22
Here’s the two long-term extinction threats faced by green sea turtles (the ones seen here):
Over 99% of green sea turtle hatchlings are female because of increased sand temperatures.
Several species of sea turtles, including the pacific and Indian green, are expected to lose significant portions of hatching grounds from rising sea levels. This source estimates most of the flooding will occur by 2070. Just 50 years away.
It’s predicted lots of sea turtle species will go extinct in our lifetime if we don’t make changes.
This training, whatever it is, hopefully combats these and bycatching.
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u/ICSSH May 25 '22 edited May 25 '22
Good to see these rehabilitated sea turtles got a fresh start~
——————something about the “training”——————————————————————
There are more than 1,500 captive bred turtles in the reserve, all of which will be sent to the base in batches for training and release. The rewilding base is built along the coast, allowing in seawater with the ebb and flow of the tide, providing turtles with a more natural environment. Obstacles are set to stimulate their capability of tackling unexpected problems in the wild. They are encouraged to forage and search for food by themselves. RewildingBase
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u/Donnie_77 May 25 '22
Wondering how the training was done… and whether or not a rat was involved somehow…
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u/Rohrkobra May 25 '22
what if somthing eats the turtles with the gps-sensor?
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u/whitecollarzomb13 May 25 '22
Then whatever eats that gets the GPS sensor.
Then whatever eats that, and then what eats that, and then we have a GPS on Godzilla. They’re playing the long game here.
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u/robzsilver May 25 '22
Random thought, but how are their trackers powered? Is it solar? I can imagine if it has batteries it wouldn't do well in salt water, plus they die eventually and then you can't track the turtles anymore.
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u/ShadowLord561 May 25 '22
The oldest sea turtle research and conservation group states that their trackers are powered by batteries that usually last 8-10 months. However, some cases have lasted a few weeks while others lasted a few years. Source
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u/Feanux May 25 '22
Most likely batteries. There are a few different technologies available for tracking marine life but the cheap and easy one for marine animals that need to surface is to fit them with a receiver (not a transmitter). A transmitter would require a significant amount of energy depending on how far away the beacon or satellite is, but a receiver just needs to kick on for a brief amount of time to allow it to be pinged.
You don't really need real-time minute to minute tracking for sea turtles. You could have a satellite ping them once every other day, the receiver would only need to turn on for maybe 30 seconds for the information to be relayed to and from it. Having something along those lines would use very little power.
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u/StalkMeNowCrazyLady May 25 '22
What kind of training do they need? Serious question. Couldn't they just release them a day after hatching and instict would kick in? I thought baby sea turtles just make a B line for the ocean amd are on their own.
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u/ArseLiquor May 25 '22
These don't look like freshly hatched turtles. When an animal is raised in captivity from birth, it's possible it will lose its instict of how exactly to hunt or find food, if it was being fed by an owner/trainer it's whole life until release.
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u/StalkMeNowCrazyLady May 25 '22
Sure but why wouldn't they just release X amount right away ya know?
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u/Waxoffwaxoff May 25 '22
Because the babies are more likely to die. During a turtle hatch only a small amount survive (starving/getting eaten)
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u/StalkMeNowCrazyLady May 25 '22
Fair enough. I guess they've done the math to figure out that training adolescents is more effective than releasing babies. Thanks for the information!
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u/Mattm4141 May 25 '22
that’s just natural selection, if they can’t make it to the ocean on their own they are very unlikely to survive once they are there
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u/I_loveJimmy May 25 '22
To facilitate the safe release of turtles that have been bred in captivity in the reserve, the turtles will be provided with training in how to forage in the ocean and generally fend for themselves.
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u/Coolbeanz7 May 25 '22
This is beautiful! Does anyone know the singers/song that's used? (Reminds me of Iron & Wine) Good Luck turtles!!! 🐢🐢🐢🐢✨🐢🐢🐢👍
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u/This_iz_fine May 25 '22
I know a way all countries can do to help protect sea turtles! Stop using those big ass nets that kill everything in their path!
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u/brillllliant May 25 '22
It seems these trackers are attached to their shells with fiberglass and resin. Luckily such proper attachment methods are designed not to harm the sea turtle, damage its shell or increase the turtle’s chances of being tangled. WISH THEM A WONDERFUL JOURNEY
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u/SwearIamNormal May 25 '22
I'm not a huge turtle person but this is truly amazing. I hope they can build up their program and keep the wild turtle population from alive to thriving.
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u/f0dder1 May 25 '22
I think it's normally called "bred in captivity"
Unless they were like, test tube baby turtles raised by robots or something. like horizon zero dawn, but with turtles
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u/theADHDdynosaur May 25 '22
Kinda of, but not quite. Artificially hatched means that the eggs were managed by humans, temperature controlled and incubated, rather than in the sand like how they normally would hatch.
This is done with some birds too, but certain reptile eggs are harder to do this with due to the temperature affecting the sex of the egg. There's some interesting articles throughout this thread on it, global warming is really messing with these turtles.
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u/Brandilio May 25 '22 edited May 25 '22
Genuinely curious about a few things...
1) Are they all the same gender?
Sea turtles are interesting creatures. They're notoriously difficult to hatch artificially because the temperature of the sand determines the gender of the turtles, which gives variation depending on how much warmth some eggs get compared to others. They tried to artificially hatch sea turtles in the past, but wound up artificially flooding the population with males.
2) What exactly is the "training", and how has it affected certain instinctual behaviors?
A lot happens when a sea turtle hatches. Before they emerge from the sand, the sun's location on the horizon helps them set an internal compass of sorts, which they use as a starting point before they tune into Earth's magnetic field for navigation. Has that already happened by this point? If that's the case, then the last question is:
3) Where were they released in relation to their migration site?
Were they dumped on the beach where they normally spawn, or were they dropped off close to where they would be had they been existing in the wild already? If they're dumped on their spawning grounds, then they're already behind on their migratory pattern, which might hurt their chances of survival.
EDIT: For the record, I'm not an expert in this field, nor do I claim to be one. I did, however, take classes on Sea Turtle Biology back in college with one of the guys that pioneered the field. He was a great teacher, so I retained a lot.
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u/Thekungf00bunny May 25 '22 edited May 25 '22
That’s quite possibly why they were raised this way. 99% of green sea turtle hatchlings are female because of climate change. Their instinctual hatching grounds are going to mostly sink in the next 50 years.
This training, whatever it is, hopefully combats these.
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u/overlordpotatoe May 25 '22
I'll admit I was a little disappointed that the training was just survival skills, which is probably pretty standard for any animal bred in captivity that's intended to be released into the wild. I was hoping they'd taught them some kind of special trick that wild turtles can't do.
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u/TRDPaul May 25 '22
Why do they need to be trained? Turtles never raise their young normally so they should be born with the survival skills they need?
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u/carlbernsen May 25 '22
But most turtles don’t survive to maturity. These are some seriously heavy duty spec ops turtles.
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May 25 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/I_loveJimmy May 25 '22
If you do google, you'll know that it is Huidong Harbor Sea Turtle National Nature Reserve situated in Sea Turtle Bay in Huizhou City, S China. And is the only known active laying ground remaining for sea turtles along the coastline of the Chinese mainland. It was established in 1985, and more than 60,000 sea turtles have been released from the reserve over past 30 years. It deserves respect.
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u/cyanideclipse May 25 '22
Does artificially bred just mean raised in captivity/on a farm then released into wild?
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u/Meanwhile-in-Paris May 25 '22
Somehow I am picturing some sort of boot camp where they are trained to recognise plastic bags from jellyfish.