Protecting Hawksbill sea turtle eggs How Singapore hatches hundreds of turtle babies annually

This is me. I'm a baby hawksbill turtle born right here on Sisters Island in Singapore. My 129 siblings and I are waddling down this sandy beach, soaking in its magnetic vibes. Scientists call it geomagnetic imprinting. It's like our turtle GPS. When we're all grown up in 30 years, we'll find our way back here to nest. But how did we get here? Let's rewind. This is Mummy. We are one of the seven species of sea turtles in the world. In our species, the hawksbill is critically endangered. There are about 8,000 nesting females like Mummy left worldwide. Hawksbills are hunted to near extinction for our beautiful shells. Only 1 in 1,000 baby turtles make it to adulthood. After Mummy laid and buried her eggs, she was spotted by some humans. Ah, don't worry, she's all good. Over the past few years, about 18 nests have been spotted at Changi Beach Park as well as East Coast Park. Our priority is to locate and secure the eggs by putting a mesh over them. This helps to prevent predators like monitor lizards from digging them up and eating them. It takes about a team of four staff to temporarily restrain the female turtle so that we can take photographs, measurements and to do the flipper tagging. Each pair of flipper tags has numbers engraved on it. And this goes into our database. When other turtle researchers in the region spot a turtle that has our tag, they will be able to contact us. This will give us valuable insights on their foraging area, movement in the region as well as the growth rates that were recorded since they were last tagged. Look, there's a glow of light and something is moving. Someone is digging up our nest and picking up my brothers and sisters. We are unearthing this nest to relocate the nest to Small Sisters Island to give the hatchlings a better chance at survival. Small Sisters Island is not open to the public. It is better protected against predators and is also further out at sea. They are actually closer to open ocean currents. This allows them to go to feeding grounds more easily, increasing their chances of survival. Here's a fun fact. Did you know that our gender depends on the incubation temperature? For example, if an egg incubates at around 28 degrees Celsius or lower, it hatches into a boy. And at higher temperatures, that'll be a new sister. We are snug in our eggshells and cosy in our nest again. Let's snooze and grow strong until hatch day. Good morning, world! This is the first time we feel the sand on our bodies. Wait a minute, something seems wrong. Some of the eggs may not hatch due to the lack of fertility, incorrect ambient temperature, humidity, or even disease. We are working with NTU to study the disease. 70% is a good hatch rate, which is within the normal range of a healthy nest. We swab around the mouth and the eyes so that we can see what bacteria that is living inside or around the turtle is. And then we're trying to find out if those bacteria or fungi can be used to prevent this disease called fusariosis. That's where you see that the egg becomes black because the fungi infects the egg. We measure their weight, the length of their shell, as well as the number of scutes. Scutes are similar to scales on a fish. The number of scutes tell us if there are any deformities, and it gives us a better idea of their survivability in the wild. Yay! We're finally heading to the beach. We get a geomagnetic imprint of this beach from this sandy runway, which will guide us home in the future. After imprinting, we are collected from the lagoon before getting a special ride out to deeper sea because there are too many reef sharks nearby. So this is our best chance to survive. Wish us luck! We hope to come home again in 30 years' time. Hawksbill turtles are precious and important because they are critically endangered. They are also one of our marine gardeners that helps to eat the sponges and keep areas clear so that other marine organisms can get the chance to grow. NPARC's goal is to increase the turtle nesting population that comes to our shores to nest. And with that, we hope to continue working with partners and volunteers to increase our monitoring efforts so that we can better understand these animals that live in our waters and our region. If members of the public spot a nesting turtle, they should keep a distance, speak softly, avoid using flash photography, and also call the NPARC helpline.