Prague, May 17 (CTK) – The Czech zoological gardens in Liberec, Ostrava, Olomouc and Hodonin take part in a project aiming to save the endangered sea turtles that its head, biologist Hana Svobodova, from the Czech Coalition for Biodiversity Conservation, presented in Prague on Wednesday.
Svobodova said six of the seven species of sea turtles live in Indonesia and four of them are critically endangered, mainly due to poachers who sell the eggs.
“The turtles completely disappeared in many places. This applies to India or Sri Lanka,” she told CTK.
In Borneo, which is politically divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, the population of green sea turtles has decreased by 91 percent since World War Two.
Svobodova said a local group takes care of the protection of the turtles in three islands, two of which are uninhabited.
The group has 15 members and its operation costs are equivalent to 80,000 crowns a month. Until October 2017, Switzerland covered these costs. Svobodova has been trying to raise funds for the group since then.
Svobodova said it is against law to take turtle eggs in Borneo but the local police are not efficient enough to punish the crime.
She wants to make local children as well as tourists more aware of how important the protection of turtles is and that collecting and selling the eggs is illegal.
