Save the turtles

Sir, Your article “Loneliness of long-distance swimmer,” (Feb 9) misses the point about conservation. Turtle eggs have been ruthlessly hunted for centuries, by coastal and fishing communities, as a virility pick-me-up. Postwar coastal population increase, burgeoning outboard engine ownership and the poor turtles’ telltale nesting tracks inevitably heralded their demise.

The giant leatherback is virtually extinct in Asia already. I visited the Malaysian government turtle hatchery at Rantau Abang in 1979, when it had just logged the season’s 1,600th leatherback nest on monitored sections of the Terengganu coast. On a subsequent visit in 2003 the hatchery was closed because only three leatherback nests had been logged in the entire 2002 season. Being caught in fishing nets, or choking on plastic bags, cannot account for the virtual disappearance of Malaysian leatherbacks in 22 years.