It’s a sweltering night on the western coast of Sri Lanka, and on Mount Lavinia beach there’s an unusual flurry of activity. Several young people in orange hi-vis vests are squatting in a circle, digging in the sand in the semi-darkness.
The team of volunteers is patrolling a popular tourist beach on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, scouting for turtle nesting sites. Finding the nests can involve a bit of detective work.
“We keep searching for [turtle] tracks and then follow the trail,” says Vikasitha Liyanage, one of the volunteers with the Pearl Protectors, a local environmentalist group who patrol between 9.30pm and 2am. “Sometimes we dig holes on the beach to look for the eggs.”
Turtle eggs have long been poached as a food source by coastal communities, but more recently it is human activity of another kind that has proved a greater threat. As the city has sprawled, especially during the past decade, restaurants and other tourist amenities have mushroomed along most parts of the country’s western coast, bringing in more people.
Along with people come parties, booming music, and much plastic and chemical waste. All of which disrupts turtle nesting during the breeding season, running from November to April.
Upul Priyantha Kumara, a restaurant manager, says he has seen for himself the problem of people crowding the turtles as they come to the beach. “One time, when a turtle arrived to lay eggs, some children who were having a birthday party tried to use flashlights and take pictures. The turtle returned to the sea without laying,” he says.
Aware that life for the turtles was becoming more difficult, Muditha Katuwawala expanded the activities of the Pearl Protectors, which he coordinates, to include regular patrols. Working with the coastguard, the volunteers help to find eggs laid in risky areas and remove them to a safe nesting place on the beach until they hatch.
Once they hatch the juveniles are given safe passage by night-time patrols. (The turtles, even if they have hatched in the daytime, will usually wait until it is cooler before emerging from the sand so it’s more often after dark when they head for the sea.)
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Muditha Katuwawala, left, coordinator of the Pearl Protectors, and a volunteer, Rose Fernando, at a turtle nesting site on Mount Lavinia beach in Colombo
Not everyone is happy about what the group is doing – and they have to be aware of the dangers.
“Last year, [while patrolling] we met a lot of agitated villagers with dogs,” says Rose Fernando, another volunteer. “One person even came with a stick or something, trying to hit us.”
Five out of the world’s seven species of sea turtles – olive ridleys, green turtles, leatherbacks, hawksbills and loggerheads – nest on Sri Lanka’s beaches. Capturing, killing, injuring or possessing sea turtles or their eggs is an offence under Sri Lankan law.
Nevertheless, a significant threat to the reptiles comes from the poachers because once they find a nest, all the eggs are usually taken.
“Certain restaurants and hotels sell these eggs to the foreigners as an exotic food, at a premium price,” Katuwawala says. “So turtle eggs now have commercial demand.”
He says patrolling alone will not create a lasting impact on turtle conservation and it needs to be combined with educating coastal communities and tourists.
Another volunteer, Lara Wijesuriya, agrees. “It makes a difference to the community in how they perceive the problem and the solution,” she says. “And it makes a difference to the volunteers in how they approach the problem. It sort of bridges the gap.”
About 90% of the villagers in the area now support the turtle conservation efforts after these awareness sessions, says Amith Nilanga, who fishes and works as a diving instructor nearby. “Others are still involved in poaching eggs to sell,” he says. “Turtle eggs are believed to be highly nutritious.” He remembers his uncles eating them raw.
In the southern part of the island, the Turtle Conservation Project, led by Thushan Kapurusinghe, has gone a step further by recruiting poachers to protect nests, providing an alternative income. “They patrol the beach [round the clock] in eight-hour shifts,” he says.
Another aspect of the problem are the illegal “turtle hatcheries” that operate openly in Sri Lanka’s tourist areas, says Katuwawala. Here, turtle eggs that have been poached from the beaches are kept until they hatch.
Tourists can then buy the juveniles to be released into the ocean, even though this is against the law and harmful to the baby turtles.
Coming into contact with humans can transfer germs to the turtles, and being released into the ocean in small numbers, during daylight, reduces the juveniles’ chances of survival.
“If hatcheries let hatchlings out during the day,” says Katuwawala, “predators such as seabirds or larger fish could easily pick them off.”
Back at the coastguard station in Dehiwala, near Colombo, tiny turtles the size of a baby’s palm struggle to emerge from beneath the sand as they hatch. It is these little creatures’ first glimpse of the world.
As the sun goes down and the sky turns a dark purple-pink, and the moon rises, hundreds of turtles begin to crawl across the beach to the water, as loud music blasts out from one of the many nearby beach restaurants.
“When you finally see the hatchlings going into the ocean, it’s really nice to know that you helped a life to live,” Fernando says.
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