Kota Kinabalu: There seem to be no end to turtle massacres in Sabah with another six found dead in Semporna, last Friday – all tied up with nylon ropes and badly decomposed – floating between Laut Silapag and Laut Sanggaban within the Priority Conservation Area. A concerned individual who posted the pictures in Facebook urged all friends to share it and to draw the attention of the Sabah Wildlife Department, demanding that the culprit be found and jailed, bearing in mind similar massacres near Pom Pom island on 16 April 2014 and 9 August 2014. In that double tragedy as well as the poisoning of pygmy elephants on several occasions, the culprits got away scot free.
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Turtle expert Dr Juanita Joseph of the University of Malaysia Trengganu said they were most likely Green Sea Turtles – a Totally Protected Species, after looking at the pictures. UMS lecturer Dr James Alin alerted Daily Express.Anyone convicted of killing a Totally Protected Species goes straight to jail without option for fines, under Schedule 1 of the Sabah Wildlife Conservation Enactment 1997.
That they were tied up suggests one person or a group killed and tied them up for easy towing away without being noticed.Suspicion usually falls on the Sea Gypsies (Palaus) – illegals who poached, dug meat out to take home to the Philippines, then tied and discarded the shells.
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But Dr James dismissed this since the Palau have no means to refrigerate meat for an extended home trip. Besides, most Sea Gypsies take shelter within the Tun Sakaran Dandai Marine Park. A more likely possibility are traditional fishermen who cast drift nets in shallow waters where the turtles may have come to feed on sea grass and got caught.
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Some of the turtles had broken carapaces, which suggest someone may have deliberately beaten them to death for attacking farmed seaweeds, pointing out there is no sign that the perpetrators had gone for the meat, nor the shells, although the carcasses were found quite a distance away from the seaweed farming area – Kerindingan Island.Or they could be part of a big catch in seine nets of a commercial fishing boat that may have crushed and broken the carapaces under its heavy weight. But why tie them up rather than just dump the dead turtles back to sea? "We don't know for sure but these are possibilities, based on experience in the Philippines," Dr James said. As to whether the culprits would be caught, brought to justice and jailed? Probably not because this is Sabah where wildlife offences keep recurring without anyone being caught."No one was arrested when dead turtles were found floating near Si Ambil Island on 9 August 2014," Dr James noted. In all three cases, the fuming public vented their anger in the social media rather than report them to the Department, Dr James noted. "We also discovered a killing field of some 50 or more turtles in Pulau Tiga in early 2014 but no one was arrested and jailed," he said."Both print media and an online news portal published a report on the four turtles killed on 16 April 2014, entitled "Another Merciless Killing of Sea Turtles in Sabah"The usual suspects ranged from seaweed farmers some of whom were aggravated by pests; artisan fishermen who landed turtles in drift nets as by-catch and opportunistic poaching from commercial fishing vessels, Dr James recalled."A week later, the Seaweed Farmers Association Semporna clarified that the association's members never harmed, what more killed turtles even if turtles are annoying pests."
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But the association did acknowledge that sea turtles caused devastation to seaweed farms, so are diseases, Rabbit fish and bad weather ."WWF-Malaysia had said its Kudat team was working closely with SWD to investigate allegations that seaweed farmers are killing turtles and the Sabah Tourism Minister said: "We will wait for the conclusion of the investigation first," Dr James said his email.