Jasmine Azizan kept a careful eye on the children as the boat crested another wave. Buzzing with excitement to join MareCet on an ocean expedition, these 36 students from Tuba Island Primary School scanned the shimmering water for signs of dolphins. But the morning’s luck had been shallow, with no dolphins spotted around Tuba Island after several hours. Hoping to turn their fortune around, Jasmine’s team steered their vessel toward a different section of the Langkawi archipelago, one of MareCet’s core dolphin monitoring areas in Malaysia. What they found instead was a strange shape floating in the emerald water. Upon inspection, Jasmine realized it was a distressed green sea turtle struggling to swim. This unexpected encounter quickly turned a routine student trip into a rescue mission.
As MareCet’s Education and Outreach Coordinator, Jasmine takes students from across Malaysia on educational sea tours in search of dolphins and other cetaceans. These tours give students an eye-opening glimpse into the world of marine biologists and inspire them to conserve the wildlife in their proverbial backyard. MareCet has several projects centered in Langkawi, where they study and protect three vulnerable species: Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, Indo-Pacific finless porpoises, and Bryde’s whales. Their projects investigate each cetacean’s distribution, abundance, and social behavior, and MareCet’s findings indicate that Langkawi may be one of the most prominent locations in Southeast Asia to find all three species.
Marine mammals and other marine species, like sea turtles, often share the same threats, including entanglement in discarded fishing gear, boat strikes in high-traffic areas, and digestive issues from pollution. In addition to monitoring cetaceans, MareCet develops sustainable solutions with authorities and communities to human activities that create these threats to all marine life. Their efforts have contributed to valuable protections in Langkawi’s waters, including securing its international designation as an important marine mammal area. They are also working to establish state-supported speed limit zones for public ferries.
When Jasmine’s boat pulled close to the floundering sea turtle, which was later named Emelda, it was clear that she could not dive. She was floating in a ferry channel with wounds on her shell, although the cause of her injuries was uncertain. After consulting her colleagues, Jasmine knew that Emelda would not survive without immediate help. The team gently lifted Emelda into the boat and informed the students that their tour would need to be cut short. To Jasmine’s delight, the children were happy to lend assistance, taking turns pouring seawater over Emelda’s carapace to prevent it from drying out.
MareCet carried Emelda to shore and transferred her to the care of Underwater World Langkawi (UWL), who could provide treatment in their facilities. UWL has taken in distressed sea turtles found by MareCet in the past; upon examining Emelda, they found that in addition to her wounds, she had also consumed a lot of trash. This may have contributed to her buoyancy problem. They provided her with intensive care and members of MareCet visited Emelda during her recovery. After three weeks under UWL’s supervision, Emelda began submerging again and was released back into Langkawi after two more months of rehabilitation.
Rescuing Emelda was not a part of Jasmine’s itinerary, but MareCet’s intervention showed these students the importance of conservation actions and collaborations between conservation groups to keep oceans safe not just for marine mammals, but for all marine life.