Sea turtles have been swimming
in the world's oceans for 65
million years, since the time of the dinosaurs. It may be
surprising that these animals
could be endangered after
existing for so long on Earth, but it's
true. There are only few places
left where sea turtles still thrive. And this is one of those
places. I've come all the way
to Sipadan Island in Malaysia, to explore one of the world's
most incredible sea turtle
sanctuaries. I'm Jonathan Bird and welcome to my world! ( ♪ music ) Well, now we go. We head out towards the reefs
of Sipadan island. This island
is so small that you can walk all the way around it on the
beach in an hour. Yet, it has a
huge population of sea turtles. I suit up for a dive to explore
the reefs and hopefully find a
few sea turtles. Immediately I end up right in
the middle of a huge school of
jacks. Sipadan is known for massive schools of fish. As the school of jacks swims
away, I spot my first sea
turtle—a Green sea turtle
swimming over the reef. It wasn't hard
because they're everywhere.
Some are swimming around, while others are napping on and in
the reef. Sea turtles actually
sleep underwater while holding their breath. A sea turtle can
easily hold its breath over an
hour! A few hundred feet away, I find
a Hawksbill sea turtle munching
on the reef. She is plucking out tasty
sponges and invertebrates that
hide in the coral, rather than
eat the coral itself. It takes a tough
stomach to digest this stuff. That was incredible! I have
never seen such big schools of
fish anywhere, but the sea turtles! Man, I must have seen
30 sea turtles on one dive.
Amazing! As we circle the island, I can
see the tracks left in the sand
by females that have climbed the beach to lay their eggs. It all starts when a male,
identified by his long tail,
catches up with a cooperative
female and courts her. From the surface, I see the
action and I prepare to film it. JONATHAN: Here's the plan. I'm
going to slip in quietly, grab
the camera, and off I go. And I need somebody to
stand on the bow and just point
at the turtles OK, just so I can see where the heck
they are. As we approach closer I gear up
to head in. The mating has begun, and I
quietly approach to film the
action. Mating is not easy for the
female sea turtle. She must
swim—and rise to breathe—for both of them. The male's long tail holds the
female and fertilizes the eggs,
while claws on his front flippers give him the ability
to grasp the female's shell. The commotion doesn't go
unnoticed by other males in the
area. They flock to the mating pair, which have drifted away
from the reef. In competition for a limited
number of females, the other
males look for ways to dislodge the suitor. One challenger
bites his flipper. When that
doesn't work, he tries a blast
of air bubbles. He tries sticking his head
between the mating pair, hoping
to wedge them apart. Through it all, the mating male
must hang on and tough it out.
Fighting back would mean losing his grip, and that's
just what his rivals want. Eventually, no less than four
additional male turtles arrive
to challenge the suitor. They all try the same
techniques and it is starting
to wear him down. Meanwhile the
female is near exhaustion. The male is
only struggling to hold
on....the female is struggling
to survive. Seeing this incredible struggle
in person for the first time
gives me a lot of respect for sea turtles. Hours later, the male has
outlasted his rivals. He
fertilizes the female's eggs
and with luck his genes will continue on. As if her job weren't hard
enough already, the female now
faces another tremendous
task--to lay the eggs—but it must wait
until nightfall. After the sun sets, I head to
the beach in total darkness. I've come ashore at night, to
see if I can find some nesting
turtles. The females come ashore and lay their eggs in
the sand. But I have to be
really quiet because if they see me or they hear me they
will take off right back into
the ocean. Using Infra-red night vision
equipment, I have found a
turtle hauling herself out of the water, painstakingly
clawing her way up the beach to
high ground. Although sea
turtles live their entire lives in the
ocean, they lay their eggs in a
nest on the beach. After the sea turtle reaches an
area well above the high tide
line, she begins to throw sand around to create a pit. I have to be very quiet because
I'm sneaking up on a turtle
that's nesting. They get pretty nervous when they're
nesting, because predators are
everywhere. She must stop frequently to
catch her breath. Her crushing
weight on land literally
asphyxiates her. Whoa! This is a good place to
be if you want to get covered
in sand. She begins to dig a hole about
3 feet deep with her rear
flippers. The hole doesn't just protect the eggs from
predators. The sex of the baby
turtles is a function of the
incubation temperature. A shallow nest
baking in the sun will be too
warm and all the babies will be female. A deep one will be
too cold and the babies will
all be male. Digging to the right depth insures a good mix
of males and females. She can't see what she is
doing—the hole must be dug
entirely be feel. As she begins laying her eggs,
we can gradually bring up some
normal lighting. She is
committed to nest now. At last she begins to lay as
many as 100 squishy eggs about
the size of ping pong balls into the nest. In two months, these
eggs will hatch and the baby
sea turtles will emerge. After she has finished laying
her eggs, she carefully fills
in the hole. Then she cleverly disguises the
exact location of the nest by
flinging some sand around. After two hours of effort, she
plods her way laboriously back
to the sea, completely
exhausted. For a sea turtle, 100 feet back
to the water is like running a
marathon. It requires enormous effort. Her body is just not
designed for travel on land. She needs the weightlessness of
the ocean to catch her breath
and cool down. Finally, she heads back to the
reef for a well-deserved rest. Two months later, newly hatched
sea turtles race to the sea.
Each baby turtle must rush past a gauntlet of predators
from land, sky and sea to reach
the open ocean. Odds are, only one of these baby sea
turtles will survive. On their journey, the sea
turtles must fight their way
through the surf, swim across
the shallows and then make their
way to the open ocean, away
from predators on the reef. They won't return to their home on
the reef until they are large
enough to be safe—about the size of a dinner plate. It's a long and perilous
journey but if this sea turtle
survives, it may go on to live over a hundred years. ( ♪ music )
