This report is the second to chronicle the daily activities of a TSA team’s visit to four countries in Asia – Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Philippines - to design turtle facilities, develop conservation programs, and consult on turtle husbandry issues. The team is led by Rick Hudson and includes Bill Zeigler, Lonnie McCaskill and Dave Manser. The team was met in Myanmar by Kalyar Platt and her father Nyunt Thein (a local retired civil engineer).

This report is the first to chronicle the daily activities of a TSA team’s visit to four countries in Asia – Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Philippines - to design turtle facilities, develop conservation programs, and consult on turtle husbandry issues. The team is led by Rick Hudson and includes Lonnie McCaskill and Dave Manser. The team was met in Myanmar by Kalyar Platt and her father Nyunt Thein (a local retired civil engineer) in Yangon, Myanmar.  The mission in Myanmar is to begin designing and “costing out” turtle and tortoise facilities that were recommended at the January 2009 workshop. 

A high point of the January 2009 workshop was the announcement that a juvenile Batagur trivitatta had been pulled from the adult breeding pond at the Yadanabon Zoo just one week earlier. Apparently hatched in 2008 from an undetected nest, the specimen is in the same size class as a cohort of 2008 wild-hatched juveniles from the Upper Chindwin River. Robust and healthy, the hatchling had obviously fared well in the semi-natural adult breeding pond. The keeper reports that several others have been seen up basking in the adult pond, and a full inspection of the sand nest bank revealed a number of old nests with hatched egg shells. This is remarkable news and helps settle our concerns that something was missing in their captive diet or environment.   At the time of this writing 17 new hatchlings from 2009 have recently been recovered.  B. trivittata is one of the most threatened species of turtles on earth and was considered close to extinction when it was “rediscovered” in a temple pond in Mandalay in 2002.  A dedicated captive breeding and management facility was opened in December 2006 which is already at maximum capacity with 163 young trivittata collected on the Chindwin from 2006 – 2008.  The B. trivittata Species Recovery Plan workshop in January 2009 recommended that two new facilities be built to allow captive population growth while suitable release sites are found.

The field research and conservation program for the endemic Burmese roofed turtle, Batagur trivittata, continues under the WCS Myanmar Program, and is based on the Upper Chindwin River.  The primary goal is to study the remnant nesting population, protect nests, and collect hatchlings for headstarting at the Yadanabon Zoo.  The eventual goal is to begin restocking young adult B. trivittata to the river in areas that are part of their former range and that convey some measure of protection from the intensive fishing practices that are so prevalent there. 

From 7 – 10 January 2009 the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), in conjunction with the Myanmar Forestry Department, conducted two workshops in Mandalay. A Species Recovery Plan (SRP) workshop for the Myanmar roof turtle, Kachuga (Batagur) trivittata, was followed by a comprehensive trade workshop entitled “Developing an Integrative Strategy for Handling Confiscated Turtles in Myanmar.”