After 1 week with WWF...

Well it's been a week since I did my internship with WWF in Melaka, and the experience so far has been truly rewarding. It's been part of my ambitions to be involve with a profession where I do get to aid those who are in need of assistance, whether in terms of conservation or conducting humanitarian aid.

So over here in Melaka, WWF is conducting one of their projects which focus on the hawksbill turtle and the painted terrapin. Their numbers are quite low, but through this project, WWF aims to boost the population and to let the government handle the situation when they are able to do so. Mainly my task as an intern is to assist with the WWF officers in conducting the beach patrol for turtle nesting at Upeh island, tagging the turtle is she has not been tagged, taking measurements on the mother turtle and her nest and eggs, transfering the eggs from the original nest to the nests at the hatchery, and also to give assistance at the field-house, which is also the office.

The best experience so far was last night when 3 turtles came to the island: one came in the early evening before sunset; while the other 2 nests at a time around 10:30pm to 12:30am. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the other 2 turtles, but the one I kept my eye one was tagged previously in a few weeks back. I monitored this one turtle at 10:40, and she laid her eggs about half an hour after digging her nest. By the time I start monitoring her, the weather was cloudy and it worsen through the time. Half an hour later, it rained quite hard and lightning was getting stronger. I stayed under the tree, trying not to get myself detected by the turtle. From 11:15 to 11:40, the lightning was so loud and scary that I swear I could feel the lightning getting close to hitting me. My supervisor asked me to abort the mission and return back to shelter at the island. While running, all I kept thinking of was my dear family of friends and of course, Rose. Thank God I'm still alive right now, but the whole adrenaline rush got into me that I couldn't sleep until 3:30am.

Well there's still more to come, and more for me to blog here. I hope I can make this blog as cool and as interesting as Chin's and Pian's blog. :)