Raising baby turtles in Mitiaro

The island’s Marine Officer designate Mr Maara Teuira has retrieved about 175 baby turtles in the event that they don’t survive after giving birth and disappear in the wide blue Mitiaro ocean. He noticed the turtle’s eggs in the white sand and decided to monitor them to the stage where they came out of the shell.
Maara Teuira is looking for donations from anyone who is willing to help these turtles survive and anyone who can provide bags of cement and steel rods so he can start building a proper hatchery or nursery for these little ones. Maara is in fact intending to build a fish pond for them and can act as an attraction for people especially the young kids so they may learn how this type of marine life lives and what they eat. Once, they grow to a mature stage Maara will then release them in the sea to fend for themselves. At the moment, these youngsters are being housed temporarily in an aluminium dinghy boat. Baby turtles according to exotic.com need a good filtration unit to help maintain water quality, as well regular cleaning. They should have enough deep water to allow for swimming, along with a place to get out of the water to bask (heated from above with a basking light.) In addition, appropriate water and ambient temperatures should be maintained.
Again, if anyone out there is inspired by this report and able to help provide bags of cement to Maara and his wife Rouru Teuira on Mitiaro so they can care for these 175 baby turtles please contact them. They also are breeding milk-fish or ‘ava in the Mitiaro Swamp Lake. Donations of materials are also being sought from anyone.
Story and photo: Glen McLaine, Melbourne

Herald Issue 554 09 March
- Norm exposes Trio of Doom
- Briefs from PM’s media conference Tuesday
- Tourism Industry ponders $5 million draft strategy
- Norman George resigns from Cook Islands Party
- Letter of Resignation from CIP
- Norman selfish says Prime Minister