Off Pandilusan Island, in the town of Payao in Zamboanga Sibugay, 140 hawksbill sea turtle hatchlings crawled down the sand and into the water this week [1]. The hawksbill is one of the most endangered turtles in the world, listed as Critically Endangered - which makes 140 of them reaching the sea at once a meaningful number [1].
The release, on July 19, was led by Forester John Kaisan Alkuino, who heads the local Biodiversity Conservation Unit, together with the municipal government and the island's caretaker, Armando Amorin [1]. The caretaker is the quiet center of a story like this: someone who watches a nest on a specific beach until the hatchlings are ready [1].
Most of the 140 will not survive to adulthood - that is the hard arithmetic of sea turtles [1]. Even so, 140 critically endangered hatchlings released together, off one island, by people who guarded the nest to get them there, is the kind of small, local, deliberate win that keeps a species in the game [1].
