Marine turtle strays into a beach house

JAGNA – THINKING it was a burglary in progress, a house owner rose in the middle of the night and stealthily crept to his beach-house hoping to surprise the culprit. He was not prepared for what he saw. Aniceto Ranido woke up that night when he heard the unmistakable sound of intrusion into their private domains, the sound coming from their beach house where he has a karaoke located a few meters from their residence in Can-upao. Wielding a sharp bolo and a club, Anecito and wife Antonia crept, aided by a small flashlight to their beach house. Gaining his quick entrance by the window, what he saw inside surprised him.

A three by four feet marine turtle was still thrashing in the sand floor of his beach house, apparently wanting to get back to the sea. Onlookers filled his place the following morning, many noting that the soft scaly-skinned body of the turtle looked rare. They said it could be looking for a sandy place to lay its eggs.

Sangguniang Bayan (SB) member Pacheco Ll. Rances chair on agriculture and marine committee in the municipal council then contacted the Bohol Environmental Management Office (BEMO) in Tagbilaran, while reporting the presence of the straying marine turtle. Leonarda Vallejos, BEMO Community Development Assistant responded to the call and came to Jagna. She interviewed people of the place, recorded and documented the event and then readied the turtle for its long effort to be free. With a final heave, residents pushed the turtle back to wander into its home which is the Mindanao sea.

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