Field Monitoring of Painted Terrapin

Field monitoring of wild Painted terrapin (Batagur borneoensis) have been carried out from 26 to 30 May 2015. The monitoring was carried out with cooperation between The  Satucita Foundation and BKSDA Aceh. During that time, 20 traps were installed at 20 locations every day. In total, 100 points of locations were surveyed over five days. In that survey, nine individuals were found. Seven are newly captured, and two are marked/tagged. Unfortunately, the tag has been lost. So, we could not identify and determine the time of the last capture of them.

Of nine individuals caught, only two are male. Others are females. So, females are dominant in the total population. Two traps also captured two pairs of Painted terrapin in one trap. It may indicate that the pair was in mating. Moreover, the males were in sexual dichromatism. Through this monitoring, the distribution of the population can be estimated.

This finding is still compiled and analyzed with previous years’ surveys to estimate the number and structure of the wild population. (SF)