SEA TURTLE CONSERVATION & HATCHERY IN HIKKADUWA

WHAT:
A a family business conservation of sea turtles where the eggs are hatched and re-released in the sea after they are fed and looked after.

WHERE & GETTING THERE:
The hatchery is situated just north of central Hikkaduwa.

You can either get there by tuktuk or bus, but since the hatchery is a very small place and it's hard to know when to get off, we went there by tuktuk and then found a bus station on the way home.

The bus station was very close to the hatchery though, just pass this statue (picture below) and there will be a station taking you in to the center of Hikkaduwa or even further.

The buses run very frequently and costs only 20 LKR.

TIME NEEDED:
About 1 hour.
We had to wait for just another tuk-tuk arriving before the guy could start going through the tanks, and after the about 15 minutes walk through you could take pictures or



MONEY NEEDED:
The entrence is 500 LKR and you can either take a tuktuk there (we paid 300 LKR split on two) or go by the bus (20 per person/way).

WATCH OUT FOR!:
Some turtles do NOT like to be touched. A man who had been there before told us a couple of Russian tourists had not understood the guide telling them not to pet certain turtles and it had ended in a ten minute battle for getting the woman's finger out of the turtles mouth.

Don't touch this cousin of the Kraken 


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OUR VISIT
We got there and paid the entrence fee. The room was very small and filled with a lot of tanks, about 10-15 of them. In the closest one newly hatched baby turtles swam around and caused a lot of "naaaaw"-ing.

We had to wait for another tuktuk to arrive until the guide would start the showing of the tanks, but the stream of people leaving and arriving was constant so we didn't have to wait for long.

Our guy showed us the tanks one at a time and told us stories about how they had received the turtle.

Locals could take the eggs from the beach in the morning and sell them as cheap food (5-6 LKR), so when the hatchery bought eggs they had to pay more just to be sure that the got them. (He did not explain why they were more expensive though...).

Then the eggs were taken into incubators until hatched and then they released them back to the ocean after 48 hours if they were healthy.

There was 5 types of sea turtles in the hatchery.
Some had been brought by fishermen after losing fins or internal damage due to boat motors and such.

Heeey don't leave me!

Most of the turtles would bite but the white one in the middle was really friendly (and a bit sassy as well) so we spent a lot of time petting it and playing with it.

Earsdropping on the other groups, we heard a lot of fact we didn't hear from pour guy. It was kind of sucky, because the other guide seemed to have a lot more knowledge and facts that I would have wanted to hear.
Of course, we could have just tagged along, but on the other side, the baby turtles really wanted our attention...

Come home with me? 

WORTH IT?:

Turtles are beautiful animals and the entrence fee was only 500 LKR, so yes.

We were a little concerned about the sizes of the tanks and that the turtles were swiming alone in one tank all day, but at the same time it was nice to see that the injured turtles were taken care of rather than being out in the wild where they probalby wouldn't have survived. 

It's not a very big project getting there and back, and does not take long time, so for a free afternoon, we'd say; 

Why not? 

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WANNA KNOW MORE ABOUT 
THESE BEAUTIFUL CREATURES 
AND 
WHAT TO DO TO HELP? 


Check out the link below! 

SEA TURTLE CONSERVATION PROJECT


(While this is not the one we visited, 
we could not find it's own website and this site 
describes the process 
and the work when trying to save the endangered 
species very well,
so take a look!) 

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For our fellow pinners! 

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