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Meet the Singaporean helping to save sea turtles at Hong Kong's Ocean Park

Anthony Chang (centre), Senior Curator of Aquariums at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park. (Photo: Ocean Park)
Anthony Chang (centre), Senior Curator of Aquariums at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park. (Photo: Ocean Park)

Every child has a dream of what he or she will end up doing as an adult, influenced by events and experiences around them. For Anthony Chang, aquarium and zoo visits and a desire to be a scientist, inventor and discoverer led him down a path of science, and eventually to marine biology.

“As a child, my parents brought me to the Van Cleef Aquarium in Singapore and later the Singapore Zoo and Zoo Negara in Malaysia. All of these zoological facilities had a wide array of animal species, which fascinated me,” Chang told Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore. “Through these visits to zoos and aquariums, I had lots of fun and was so into what I saw that I wanted to be surrounded by them and tried to learn everything about them!”

Today, the 49-year-old is the Senior Curator of Aquariums at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park, helping to nurse rescued marine animals back to health. Although its reputation is more as an amusement park with themed events such as its Halloween Fest, Ocean Park is also home to zoological and aquarium exhibits, such as giant pandas and mantas.

It also collaborates with the Hong Kong government to rescue sea turtles, having cared for 81 of the marine creatures since 2000. In the last fiscal year, Ocean Park provided temporary care for 36 green sea turtles, all of which were successfully rehabilitated and released to the ocean by June 2017.

Members of Ocean Park’s Aquariums team releasing a rehabilitated sea turtle off the coast of Hong Kong. (Photo: Ocean Park)
Members of Ocean Park’s Aquariums team releasing a rehabilitated sea turtle off the coast of Hong Kong. (Photo: Ocean Park)

While not all the turtles that have been sent to the park over the years have been able to recover and be released into the ocean, Chang said that “it is heartening to see the lucky ones recover after being treated and cared for by the aquarists, and eventually be returned to the wild”.

One turtle had a significant amount of marine debris which needed to be removed from its intestines, and required an advanced surgical procedure that had never been performed in Hong Kong before. That particular sea turtle was returned to the sea in August 2016.

The success of the new procedure, performed in December 2015, means that sea turtles requiring similar care in the future will have a better chance at rehabilitation.

Chang, who studied Biological Sciences at the University of Calgary in Canada, has also cared for bottlenose dolphins and sea lions, penguins and parrots in the Jurong Bird Park, and aquarium animals in Underwater World Singapore, which collaborated with the Nagoya Public Aquarium in Japan on a sea turtle rescue and release programme.

“Sea turtles are curious and they love to eat a lot,” the curator said, recounting a time when the sea turtle pool had to be cleaned underwater.

“We always had to look around periodically because our turtles might come by and nibble our dive boots or dive hood,” Chang said, adding that the turtles may have been expecting the staff to feed them, or testing to see if the items were edible. He added that, compared to the green turtles and olive ridley turtles, the hawksbills seemed to be the most curious.

While some turtles may have distinct shell markings to help distinguish them from one another, these and other body patterns can change or be lost over time, Chang said, adding that staff sometimes make temporary marks without hurting the creatures for identification.

Anthony (centre) and his team conferring with the Director of Veterinary Services, Dr Paolo Martelli, after an ultrasound scan and health check procedure on a female Tawny Nurse shark. (Photo: Ocean Park)
Anthony (centre) and his team conferring with the Director of Veterinary Services, Dr Paolo Martelli, after an ultrasound scan and health check procedure on a female Tawny Nurse shark. (Photo: Ocean Park)

Chang hopes that the park’s aquariums give visitors something to think about, and finds satisaction when he hears guests talking about how they have learnt something new and promising to take action to protect the animals.

“It has been unfortunate that we have had recurrent sea turtle stranding events that required rescue, treatment, rehabilitation and release. The recurrent strandings reflect how human activities, especially marine debris, plastics and pollution in the ocean, threaten marine life,” he said.

“Not only will marine animals mistakenly ingest plastic and garbage in the ocean, they may also be entangled by marine debris such as fishing nets and lines.”

However, despite Ocean Park’s conservation efforts and rehabilitation of sea turtles, it has drawn flak from certain corners. For example, the park’s bottlenose dolphins, all of which were born in captivity, are often the subject of criticism from animal rights groups against the keeping of marine mammals.

Chang admits that Ocean Park being both an amusement park and a zoological facility can be considered a challenge. “Some members of the public think that aquariums are purely for entertainment or commercial use, but we believe that they have a purpose that is more enriching and valuable for our visitors,” Chang said.

“An aquarium is a place that allows people to feel or realise connection with animals and nature. With such a connection, I think a visit to an aquarium can help us realise the connectedness of all living things and habitats on our planet, which could even influence our behaviours and the choices that we make.”

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