3 Ginger Snaps

The pictures in this post are about 3 weeks old. Sri Lanka was loads of fun – and the internet service was pretty patchy – so we didn’t always get posts and updates done as fast we would have liked. We are going to try and play a little catch up now. In no particular order. 

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One of the things I admire most about Asia is the entrepreneurial spirit of so many of the people there. That said, I’m not totally onside with all the business ideas. For example, performing monkeys on the ends of leashes, elephant rides, children selling fruit, flowers and postcards in the street. But those are value judgements and in many ways it is hard for me to have a balanced perspective on those judgements given the incredible privileges I enjoy being a traveling westerner. 

During our first week in Sri Lanka we came across one such business and it left me with mixed feelings – although mostly positive ones. The business in question was the Habaradua turtle farm. 

We went to visit the turtle farm one afternoon before supper. It was located on a gorgeous and long stretch of beach. Here is how the business works:

1. Collect turtle eggs from the beach. (This seemed like a good thing to me since the turtle eggs are vulnerable to predators and poachers.)
2. Incubate the eggs in a hatchery until they hatch (seems a good thing for the same reason as 1)
3. When the eggs hatch, keep the hatchlings for a few days and raise them in a tank. (This is the part I am not sure I agree with. We encountered a few different perspectives on this practice during our time at the turtle conservation project in Malaysia. Some say it’s a good thing because the hatchlings are larger and the shells are harder and thus they have a better chance of surviving at sea. Others say it’s a bad plan because it interrupts the turtles’ 400 million year old instinct of getting right into the water and swimming out to sea. I have no idea who is right. )
4. Once the eggs have hatched, sell the hatchlings to tourists so they can let them go at sunset down on the beach. (So is the hatchery keeping the hatchlings so that they can grow for a few days and have better defences at sea or are they keeping the hatchlings so they can sell them off in small batches to tourists looking for an experience?)
5. Shelter and rehabilitate as best as possible any injured turtles that locals find and bring into the hatchery. 

One way or another, this business is playing a role in turtle conservation and they are releasing more turtles into the ocean than would naturally be surviving if the nests were left exposed. And they are also employing local people. And, full disclosure, they are giving pretty fun experiences to people like us. After not seeing a single turtle during our week at the Juara Turtle Project, we saw lots of turtles at the Habaradua Turtle Farm. And we also released some hatchlings. And it was awesome and incredible to see just how fast those little critters can move once they are given the chance!

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