Protector of the turtle in Bali

Budiartha & Dipolah Seng  - 

Wayan Raga can usually be found by the shallow turtle pool in his garden. The area is filled with dozens of turtles swimming in the pool or just lazing around the yard. Some are an inch in size, others measure a meter long.

“Here is a new hatchling, just one month old. That one there is four months old. The one in the cage next to it is four years old,” said the renowned Balinese turtle breeder.

“The 4-year-old, already quite large, is a favorite of the visitors who come here.”

From the care and attention Wayan shows the gentle sea creatures, you would never guess that he once made a living hunting and selling them for their meat.

“After 20 years of hunting and trading turtles, I now realize that there is something very wrong in the way we exploit nature,” he said.

Wayan established Citra Taman Penyu in 2001 at his home on Pulau Serangan, or Turtle Island, 250 meters off the southeast coast of Bali. It is an organization that works to protect and breed sea turtles, a job Wayan considers atonement for his past actions.

After he graduated from junior high school in Denpasar, Wayan decided to become a turtle-hunter.

At the time, in 1971, there were no restrictions on killing turtles and the work promised a good living.

Before the hunting of turtles in Indonesia was banned in the early 1990s, demand for their meat, for both consumption and ceremonial purposes, was very high in Bali.

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Photo Budiartha

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