Talang-Satang National Park

Talang-Satang National Park is Sarawak's first marine protected area. It covers an area of 19,414 hectares and was gazetted in 1999 to with the purpose to enhance marine turtle conservation in Sarawak. The Park encompasses the coastline and waters surrounding four islands which are Pulau Talang-Talang Besar and Pulau Talang-Talang Kecil (located off Sematan), and Pulau Satang Besar and Pulau Satang Kecil (located off Santubong). These small islands are surrounding by patches of shallow coral reef that provides shelter and resting grounds for sea turtle that come ashore to lay their eggs. Three of the island's park which are Talang-Talang Besar, Talang-Talang Kecil, and Satang Besar are also known as "Turtle Island". 

Turtle Conservation

Marine turtles face a number of threats that could affect their species. The threats that the turtles faces are entanglement in fishing nets, habitat destruction, water pollution, collection of turtle eggs, boat strikes, predation of eggs and hatchlings by birds, monitor lizards, civet cats, other wild and domestic animals, poaching for meat or shells, and also ingestion of marine debris such as plastic bags. Therefore, the state government carries out turtle conservation programmes in the park.

Releasing baby turtle to the sea

The Sarawak Forestry manages the national park and set up a number of hatcheries for the turtles. During the peak turtle nesting season which is from May to September, the park wardens monitor the beached for turtle landings. They remove the turtle eggs from the nests and place them in the hatcheries to avoid threats that could threatening the extinction of turtles. After 40 to 60 days of the turtle eggs incubation, the young hatchlings are released and scamper across the beach to the sea.

VISITING PULAU SATANG BESAR

Pulau Satang Besar

Pulau Satang Besar is the largest among the park's island. It is open to visitors and accessible by boat from Santubong or Damai Beach. The entrance fees and tickets to the park can be purchased on the island. There is a small information centre near the beach and visitors also able to view the turtle hatchery. The beach in Satang is known as one of the best beach in Sarawak and it is possible to snorkel on the nearby reef if there is good visibility. There are privately own chalets in Satang Island for visitors to stay overnight. 

VISITING PULAU TALANG BESAR

Sea Turtle Adoption Programme

Turtles take priority over tourists at Pulau Talang Besar, therefore access to the island is restricted to researches and national park staff. However, you can visit the island as a volunteer on Sarawak Forestry's Sea Turtle Adoption Programme. This volunteering allows volunteers to spend 4 days learning more about turtles and able to take part in a range of activities such as beach patrols to locate turtle landings, monitoring of nesting activities, tagging and measuring turtles, transferring eggs to the hatchery, releasing hatchlings, and also data recording. The volunteer programme is open during the peak turtle nesting season which is from May to September.

BAKO NATIONAL PARK

A national park since 1957, Bako offers the perfect introduction to Sarawak's forests and wildlife. The Park covers the northern tip of Muara Tebas peninsula, an area of 27 sq km. Despite its seemingly small size, Bako contains a wide range of vegetation - swamp forest, scrub like padang vegetation, mangrove forest, dipterocarp forest, delicate cliff vegetation and more. In fact, at Bako it is possible to see almost every type of vegetation found in borneo. Bako also contains a rich variety of wildlife and coastline covered with small bays, coves and beaches.

The park has a number of well-marked trails offering interesting walks ranging from short pleasant strolls to serious full-day hikes. Unlike some national parks, visitors to Bako are almost guaranteed to see wildlife. Long-tailed macaque monkeys and silver leaf monkey are ever present, wild boar are often found rummaging around the park HQ, squirrels and monitor lizards are also common. There is every chance of seeing the rare and unusual proboscis monkeys on trails such as Telok Paku and Telok Delima, particularly if you go late afternoon. You are more likely to see wildlife if you quietly follow the trails and keep listening. For example, you'll probably hear the crash of vegetation before you are able to locate a proboscis monkey high up in the forest canopy.

Bako's plant life is both beautiful, and readily accessible. All the trails have a great variety of vegetation, from  mighty 80 metre dipterocarps to dense mangrove forest. Carnivorous pitcher plants are found on the Lintang  Trail. 

Bako also have some good white sand beaches that provide perfect resting spots between jungle treks. Telok Pandan Kecil is perhaps Bako's best beach. After an hour or so the Telok Pandan Kecil trail comes to a rocky headland. The view down to a beautiful secluded bay, and the thought of a swim in the cool waters, has a magical on tired calf muscles. the following 20 minutes descent suddenly becomes more enjoyable. All of the beaches are bordered by limestone and sandstone cliff, and the actionof the sea has left some remarkable rock formations, such as the famous Sea Stack.

If your take a stroll at sunset on Telok Assam beach near the park HQ, you will see hundreds of swifts hovering around their nests at the rocks at the far end of the beach. Don't leave the beach after the sun disappears behind Mount Santubong. Wait another 20 minutes as the sky's colours often changes dramatically, providing a colourful backdrop to the mountain.