Author(s): Pushpa Palaniappan and Haziq Harith Abd Hamid

Abstract: Mabul Island, located on the east coast of Sabah, Malaysia, has a population of resident green (Chelonia mydas) and hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) turtles, however little is known about them. This report highlights the spatial site fidelity of sea turtles at a foraging ground in this region. A mark-recapture study was conducted between August 2010 through November 2015 and there were 109 individual turtles of various size classes repeatedly captured at seven established dive sites where they ranged from 4 to 40 occurrences (mean ± s.d. = 16 ± 14). The results demonstrated that the turtles significantly (p< 0.000) favored some dive sites mainly due to the availability of shelter under rocky outcrops and on reef ledges. Further analysis showed that juveniles were the most abundant (78.9%) (p = 0.0021), indicating a healthy recruitment into this population. Green turtles were the dominant species with a ratio of 6:1 (p = 0.0326).

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