- Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries releases 6 sea turtles artificially incubated, rescued and treated to natural habitat in Jeju Sea -

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (Minister MOON, Seong-Hyeok) has announced that they released 6 sea turtles*, artificially incubated or recovered after the rescue, back to their natural habitat on August 26th(Thursday) in Jungmun Saekdal Beach in Jeju.

* (Artificially incubated sea turtles) 2 green sea turtles, (Rescued and treatmented sea turtles) 1 green sea turtle, 3 loggerhead sea turtles

Sea turtles is facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. Due to coastal development and environmental pollution, environmental deterioration of sand beaches, known as spawning area of sea turtle, has been reported. Sea turtles are also threatened by accidentally getting caught in fishing gear. Besides, floating marine plastic litters such as a plastic bag threatens the lives of sea turtles because it can look like jellyfish, algae, or other species that make up a large component of the sea turtles’ diets.

In response, the International community works to eliminate sea turtle bycatch and to reduce the loss of sea turtle habitats. It can be achieved by establishing and strengthening protected areas and introducing turtle-friendly fishing practices, such as the use of turtle excluder devices in nets.

To protect sea turtles, MOF also designated 5 species of sea turtles* appearing in the seas of Korea as ‘marine protected species’, and strictly prohibited the capture or commercial trade of their population. In addition, MOF has been trying to rescue and treat stranded or by-catched sea turtles and restore their population through artificial proliferation research.
* Loggerhead sea turtles, Green sea turtle, hawk's bill turtle, Leatherback sea turtle, Olive ridley sea turtle

Since 2014, under the cooperation with the Korea Marine Environment Corporation and Aqua Planet Yeosu, MOF has promoted research on sea turtle proliferation and successfully hatched egges of the green sea turtles in 2017 and the hawk's bill turtles in 2018. As an effort to increase the sea turtle population, MOF has been releasing artificial hatched sea turtles and rescued ones to the sea at Jeju, every year since 2017. The total number of sea turtles that have returned to nature so far is 128.

Jungmun Saekdal beach connected to the warm Pacific Ocean in Jeju ,where MOF released sea turtles, was reported as an area sea turtles spawned several times*. It is considered a place where young sea turtles are likely to survive with less fishing gear, which lower a risk of bycatch, and abundant food in surrounding waters.

* 1999, 2002, 2004 and 2007(The last spawning was observed in Korea)

Earlier this year, it was confirmed that artificially incubated 3-year- old Green Sea Turtle swam to the coast of Vietnam where their primary habitats are located, and settled down successfully after being released from Jeju on September last year.

LEE, Jae-Young, the director of Marine Ecology Division of MOF, cited "I hope that the released sea turtles enjoy the wide ocean freely like ones who left for their hometowns last summer." and "The MOF will continue to make various conservation efforts for protected marine species such as sea turtles to enjoy the oceans in a good health condition."