First STOP: BATAAN!!!

The beautiful mountain of Bataan...

     Hello readers! WE are here once again to tell you all sorts of amazing things we found out about nature and about our resources! Our first stop in our trip to nature is Bataan, the beautiful and unique Bataan! And we went there to visit two of the amazing sites in Bataan: The Pawikan Conservation Center (PCC) and the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant! However, we’re just going to post, for now, the awesome things we learned in our first venue, the PCC! And we will start off this post with a quote:

      That quote means that you can see the real moral progress of a nation by simply looking at how the nation treats its animals. Does the nation make programs concerning the wildlife? OR does the nation leave that issue behind? How about you? What do you think of our government? Does the government make efforts on protecting wildlife or what?

     Now, let’s move on to our field trip…    

     We had a field trip in Bataan because our teacher wanted us to know the real status of the Earth’s resources like the sea turtles for example. And also to widen and open our minds on the effects on the little things we do. Did you know that when you throw a plastic bag on the ground and not on the proper place, there will be a chance that you can kill a marine turtle? We didn’t, but because of the lecture in PCC, we knew what we had to do. Do you want to know why it can kill them? ANSWER: OF COURSE. Simple, when plastic bags are thrown in the ground, there can be some circumstances that it will end up in the sea. Then, the little turtles will see the plastic as a jellyfish (They eat jellyfishes.), and after they eat and swallow it, something bad will happen and the turtles will eventually suffocate (Maybe, it wasn’t that simple).

     We joined this field trip because we wanted to, of course, go to Bataan and see the little pawikan hatchlings. We also wanted to clean-up the coastal area where the turtles hatch their eggs. And we wanted to see how the BNPP works. We also expected that there will be hatchlings available on the time we go to the PCC (That was about last February 3, 2012.) and we also expected that we can, of course, learn more about the turtles and the “White Elephant” (BNPP).

And what did we feel before the trip? Here:

Kai Lin feels… “that we will have a good field trip!!!”

Snowdrop is… “excited and nervous because I’m afraid that the bus will leave me!!!”

Josh Bayns (Josiah’s new nickname) is…”excited.”

Nathan is…”very excited!”

Aluxre is…”a little nervous because I haven’t released a hatchling before!”

    

     The five of us expected to see turtle hatchlings in the PCC and we also expected to have a great day and see the different kinds of species there and how they conserve it. And you might probably have on question in your mind, “What is the PCC?” Answer: The PCC is one of the conservation centers in the Philippines. It’s a center that helps in the preserving and the conserving of the turtles or the “pawikans” in the Philippines. We learned a lot from the PCC like ways on how they hatch, the imprinting process and the kinds of species there. There are five species seen on the Philippines: the Olive Ridley (Which was the only species we saw in the PCC.), the Green, the Leatherback, the Hawksbill, and the Loggerhead Turtle, but we were only able to adopt an  Olive Ridley or the Lepidochelys olivacea.

Pictures of the Olive Ridley turtles heading to the shore. :D

    

          

     Now let us give some facts about the one and only live turtle we saw in the PCC, the Olive Ridley!!!

     The Olive Ridley Turtle or the Lepidochelys olivacea is also known as “mukay” in Bicol and “latun” in Palawan. And this is the taxonomic classification:

  

    Taxonomic classification...

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Testudines
Family:	Cheloniidae
Genus:	Lepidochelys
Species:	L. olivacea

     The Olive Ridley is also the smallest marine turtle in the whole world and it is named after it's shell which is colored olive green. It also feeds on all food types like crabs, shrimps and snails. The Olive Ridley is distributed in Bataan and Zambales here in the Philippines. We also chose the Olive Ridley Turtle because it was the only sea turtle we saw in the PCC. And based on what Kai Lin said “It was so cute!”, it was really cute. 

OLIVE RIDLEY TURTLES!!!!

     Lastly, what’s the ecological importance of that turtle? Well, the Olive Ridley Turtle serves as the carnivores  in the food web. They also help balance the food chain of the marine life, without them, there won’t be, of course, balance in the ecosystem which results in some disruptions of the other marine creatures. And they are also creatures made by God so we should preserve and conserve them (You see how awesome they are?).

    That’s about it for now, SO LONG READERS! Thank you for reading our long post and we hope that you’ll stick to our blog (We don’t mean it literally.)until the end and until our NEXT trip to nature!!! Oh, and we hope you learned a lot from our trip!!!