FIFTY years ago Malaysia's northern state of Terengganu played host to 6,000 to 10,000 leatherback turtle nests every summer.
It was closely followed by the leatherback turtle, at 15Hz.
The population has plummeted because local people adore eating leatherback eggs and because fishermen are estimated to pull nearly a quarter of the species' Pacific population from the ocean each year.Which is why scientists, greens and officials gathered in Kijal, in southern Terengganu, this week to discuss what to do and how to pay for it.
Elephants and buffalo stroll down to the water, and leatherback turtles make their nests: his elephants, his buffalo, his turtles.
In the past 20 years, for example, 90% of leatherback turtles and large predatory fish, such as sharks, have disappeared.Where and how this is happening has been difficult to say, since the ocean is something of a black box.
Tony Steyermark, of the University of St Thomas, in Minnesota, calculates that 1,000-odd 1,000-oddl clonesuccessful needed for a fair shot at clonesng a breeding female, such are the odds of leatherback hatchlings snuffing it.
At the Gamba protected-area complex, on the coast of Gabon, patrolling rangers make daily logs of deposits of flotsam from the industrial world that has arrived on their remote Atlantic beaches at the same time as they record the comings and goings of the local leatherback turtles.Mr Liebenberg sees an even wider potential for his invention.
There are many endangered leatherback sea turtle nesting sites on the islands, the most notable of which is perhaps Matura Beach, on Trinidad.
The leatherback sea turtle predominantly consumes gelatinous prey in the form of jellyfish and salps, apparently timing its movements into different areas to coincide with the seasonal blooms of prey.
Sea turtle, any of seven species of marine turtles belonging to the families Dermochelyidae (leatherback sea turtles) and Cheloniidae (green turtles, flatback sea turtles, loggerhead sea turtles, hawksbills, and ridleys).
In contrast, the leatherback shell of dermochelyids has a greatly reduced bony architecture, and the bones are less firmly articulated; scutes appear in hatchlings, but they are quickly shed, so the bony shell is covered with a thick, leathery skin.
