Chapter 36. Leatherback Turtle

     Fang Xinhua invested 800,000 yuan to open a store called “Poseidon Holiday Diving Center” with Li Yaolin. He holds 35% of the shares and only receives dividends every quarter. He can supervise Li Yaolin and the diving center, but does not participate in the actual operation and management.

     In addition, if the diving store goes bankrupt or Fang Xinhua withdraws his investment within five years, the store will belong to Li Yaolin, who will give him certain compensation based on the store value and his shares.

     If the operation exceeds five years, the store will eventually belong to Li Yaolin, and Li Yaolin will no longer have to compensate Fang Xinhua based on the value of the store.

…

     With the additional investment of 800,000 yuan, Li Yaolin can take a bigger step.

     She first spent 400,000 yuan to build a house next to the convenience store as a store.

     The building has two floors, the first floor is 200 square meters, of which 50 square meters will be connected to the second floor to build a swimming pool. At that time, a glass wall will be built here to monitor the safety of students undergoing diving training in the swimming pool at any time. The remaining 150 square meters are used as office areas and stores for receiving tourists.

     In addition to the swimming pool, there is also a 50-square-meter open-air viewing platform on the second floor, and the remaining 100 square meters are leisure and rest areas.

     The construction period of the diving center is about ten days. Li Yaolin contacted Liang Ying and asked her to draw the decoration design draft of the diving center. After Liang Ying returned from Xingzhou Island, she thought carefully and decided to follow her inner thoughts and take the postgraduate entrance examination. She communicated with her parents several times, and finally her parents also expressed their respect for her choice.

     Shen Sili told Li Yaolin the news, and the latter contacted Liang Ying and confirmed with her that she would work as a part-time designer.

     “Don’t you need me to measure the scale first?” Liang Ying confirmed with Li Yaolin again.

     Li Yaolin replied to her: “Well, the file I gave you has the specific data of the overall building of the diving center. These data are very accurate. You don’t need to make another trip. Once you have produced the drawings, if there are no problems, you can come to the site occasionally to follow up. It is best to rush out the design draft within a week.” 

     Normally, the designer can produce the drawings in three days. It doesn’t take so long as a week. Liang Ying thinks that the island owner must be sympathetic to her postgraduate entrance examination, so he gave her so much time. Woohoo, how can there be such a good boss as the island owner in the world? 

     She decided to officially become the island owner’s chicken soup fan from this moment on! 

     Li Yaolin suddenly shuddered. She looked up at the sky. Now the sun is very strong, why does she feel a chill? Wiping off the goose bumps on her arms, Li Yaolin came to the tourist reception center of Xingzhou Island and accepted an interview with the official media. 

     This interview was not only for the government to show the determination and achievements of the oil market in pollution control to the public, but also for promoting the tourism and cultural brand of Yóushì to the whole country, enriching the content of Yóushì’s ecological civilization construction, and promoting the “Civilized City” work, so the government attaches great importance to it.

     After the last magazine interview, Li Yaolin already had experience. When asked by the official media reporter how to control pollution, her answer was very official: “We have spent a lot of effort in pollution control, invested a lot of manpower and material resources, and strictly controlled the degree of development… Of course, all this is worth it.”

     Reporter: “…”

     It’s the same as saying nothing.

     But at least it’s not bragging, after all, the results of pollution control are here and can stand the test.

     The reporter also selected a few tourists for interviews, and focused on interviewing two protectors in the wildlife ecological protection area.

     After the interview, the photographer fiddled with the drone to take aerial photos of Xingzhou Island.

     Before shooting, the photographer knew that Xingzhou Island had a good environment, less pollution, and clear water quality, but when he looked down at the entire island and the surrounding sea through aerial photography, he had a clearer understanding of this evaluation.

     In the camera, the sea area of Xingzhou Island is like amber under the purple light. Just looking at it, he felt a cool and comfortable sea water infiltrating his heart, making him feel comfortable and want to put down his work and enter the leisure mode immediately, in the sea area not belonging to Xingzhou Island, although the color of the sea water is also blue, it is too ordinary to arouse people’s interest.

     Just like the inner and outer sea areas, they are clearly divided, and people can’t help but have the absurd idea of “whether there is transparent glass separating them.” Interestingly, the area where those seabirds hunt has always been in the inner sea area, which shows that the outer sea area is not very attractive to them.

     In addition to the pictures taken by the official media, Li Yaolin also sent them the underwater video she took during her last diving to enrich the tourism image of Xingzhou Island.

     The sky gradually darkened, and Li Yaolin, who was about to go back to the dormitory to take a shower and sleep after finishing the work at hand, was disturbed by the ringing of the mobile phone.

     “It’s so late, who will call?” Li Yaolin muttered and took out her mobile phone, but found that it was Long Feng who called.

     As soon as the call was connected, Long Feng excitedly said, “Island owner, come to the beach of the reserve!”

     Li Yaolin: “?”

     Although she didn’t understand, she still went over with a flashlight.

     The beach of the reserve without street lights was dark, and only one light was on in the hatchery. Through the moonlight and a beam of light from the flashlight, she found Long Feng and his colleagues squatting on the beach.

     “What’s wrong?” Li Yaolin asked them.

     “Leatherback turtles^[1]The leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), sometimes called the lute turtle, leathery turtle or simply the luth, is the largest of all living turtles and the heaviest non-crocodilian reptile, … Continue reading, two leatherback turtles have come ashore!” Long Feng lowered his voice, but he was very excited.

     “Is it a new species of sea turtle?” Li Yaolin looked at the two black sea turtles exposed to the flashlight not far away. One was lying motionless a few meters away, and the other was trying to crawl forward, not knowing where to go.

     Long Feng was mesmerized: “Look at their carapaces, how beautiful! The lines and color, how healthy and strong, probably more than 20 years old. Although it’s a little late in this season, it’s very likely that they are here to lay eggs.”

     Li Yaolin: “…”

     Without any scientific knowledge, she simply took out her phone to search for information about leatherback turtles, and found that it was a national first-class protected animal like the green turtle, but the appearance was obviously different.

     Suddenly, she saw that there seemed to be movement over the reef, and she threw the flashlight over to see that it was a green turtle digging a hole on the beach next to the reef.

     She said in surprise: “There is another green turtle there.”

     Long Feng’s colleague explained: “Oh, that’s just the female turtle No. 1 that we are all familiar with. Judging from its crawling path, egg-laying time and the location of the hole it is digging, it came ashore this time to lay a second nest in the original nest.”

     There are only three turtles recorded on the island, one male and two females, of which No. 1 is the female turtle that came ashore to lay eggs the earliest. In order to distinguish male and female turtles, female turtles are numbered. Since there is only one male turtle, it is not numbered for the time being.

     Li Yaolin asked again: “Sea turtles lay eggs in different nests, can’t they lay all at once?”

     Long Feng’s colleague told her that sea turtles usually lay eggs in batches, and they rest for more than ten or twenty days after laying one nest, and then lay the second nest when the next nest of eggs matures. Female sea turtles lay an average of four nests during the breeding season. 

     Li Yaolin said “Oh” and acted very calmly: “So you have a new turtle and forgot the old one. If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have known there was a green turtle.”

     Long Feng and his colleagues were at a loss for words and teased her: “We thought you were too calm, Island owner, and thought that for you, there was no difference between new and old turtles.”

     “How could it be?” Li Yaolin asked them, “Since there are new turtles, why are you squatting here instead of studying them?”

     Long Feng was in a good mood and teased himself: “Two new guests came, and we were afraid that we would be too enthusiastic and scare them away.”

     Li Yaolin thought, don’t worry about this, the turtles that can come to Xingzhou Island are more or less courageous. Last time she caught the green turtle and checked it over and over again, and it didn’t scare it away.

     She held back her yawn and asked, “It will probably take several hours for them to choose a good place and start digging holes to lay eggs. Are you going to stay here?”

     “We have to keep records and cannot leave. But we will take turns to rest. After they lay eggs, we have to check and confirm whether they have marks or trackers on their bodies. If not, it means they are wild turtles. If there are marks, it means they are released, and we have to record the relevant data so that the tracking work can be carried out more smoothly.”

     Li Yaolin stood in awe: “Thank you for your hard work.”

     “What kind of hard work is this? The environment here is much better than ours. You see, I have been squatting here for so long, and no mosquitoes have come to bite me.” Long Feng said happily, “And if it is confirmed that the leatherback turtles are also here to lay eggs, do you know what this means?”

     Li Yaolin shook his head. Long Feng said: “Our reserve has been established for more than 30 years, but fewer and fewer sea turtles come ashore to lay eggs on their own. Last year, only three green sea turtles came ashore to lay eggs. You have already confirmed that one green sea turtle has come ashore to lay eggs on its own, and now there are two leatherback turtles to be confirmed. It’s really amazing!” He and his colleagues found it incredible.

    They thought that this was an island developed for tourism, and sea turtles would be affected by environmental damage and stay away from here. As a result, not only did not happen, but more and more sea turtles chose this place. Isn’t this against scientific common sense?

     However, too many things happened on Xingzhou Island that cannot be explained by current scientific theories. The world is unknown, and nature is magical. They should treat it with a normal mind. 

     Li Yaolin raised her eyebrows and said nothing. She stayed for a while longer before calling the law enforcement to report. She was busy all day, sleepy and tired, and really couldn’t squat with Long Feng and others to watch the sea turtles lay eggs, so she went back to rest first. 

     The next morning, Li Yaolin yawned as he went to the reserve. He found that Long Feng and his colleagues led Captain Pan and others to take photos of two new leatherback turtles and register their data on the beach. From their sweat-soaked clothes, it can be seen that they have been busy here for a long time.

     Even though he had been working all night and looked very haggard with his unshaven beard, Long Feng was still energetic and did not look tired at all when talking about turtles. “There are no marks or trackers on these two leatherback turtles. We should be the first to discover and record them.”

     Li Yaolin felt his joy and asked, “Are they here to lay eggs?”

     “Yes, look here!”

     Li Yaolin saw two small flags on the beach. According to Long Feng, this is the leatherback turtle’s egg-laying site. They dig deep pits and know how to deal with traces when burying them. They are more careful than green turtles. If Long Feng and his team had not watched them all night, they might have overlooked it.

     “How is the egg-laying situation?”

     Long Feng said: “We haven’t dug them out yet, but from what we observed last night, the second nest of green turtle No. 1 is stable, with more than 90 eggs laid, and the two leatherback turtles are also normal, with more than 100 eggs each.”

     Li Yaolin suddenly had an idea: “Why don’t we give them a proper name? I think we can collect names from netizens.”

     Wouldn’t it be a chance to raise the popularity of Xingzhou Island by collecting names online? !

     Li Yaolin even thought further: “When they all hatch, we will have hundreds of turtles here. If they all stay here to live, wouldn’t we be able to see the grand scene of turtles all over the beach?!”

     Long Feng and his colleagues looked at each other and thought the island owner was naive and cute.

     They said: “Without human intervention, the survival rate of baby turtles is one in a thousand. Under natural conditions, the hatching rate of turtle eggs is only about 60%, and the hatched baby turtles will die for various reasons, so only one will survive to adulthood.”

     Li Yaolin’s eyes widened: “The survival rate is so low?!”

     “Yes, so the breeding work in our reserve is to increase their survival rate as much as possible.”

     “Then what is the general survival rate of baby turtles in the case of artificial breeding?”

     “The survival rate of baby turtles artificially bred in our reserve is as high as 94%. As for how many can survive to sexual maturity, it remains to be investigated. After all, many turtles take 20 to 30 years to be considered sexually mature, and our reserve has only been established for more than 30 years, so there is a lack of detailed data.”

     Speaking of this, Long Feng was still very proud. He talked more, and as a result, Li Yaolin had another science lesson.

     While chatting, they finished recording the data and marked the two leatherback turtles that had just laid eggs. As soon as they were released, they could not wait to crawl to the seaside, and they were carried away by the waves not long after they started crawling.

     Long Feng and his team could not confirm whether the leatherback turtles had left the sea area, but Li Yaolin firmly believed that they would choose to stay here like the three green turtles before.

     Their birthplace may be thousands of miles away, but since they abandoned their birthplace and came here to lay eggs, it means that they recognize Xingzhou Island very much.

     The appearance of wild leatherback turtles has made Xingzhou Island more popular in Yóushì. Li Yaolin took the opportunity to cooperate with the cultural and tourism department to launch an online activity to collect names for the five turtles, It immediately received an active response from the citizens of Youshi.

     Since the official blog of Xingzhou Island was unpopular and the official website was quite deserted, the task of launching the name collection activity fell to the official media. Not only did the official blog and WeChat public account publish pictures and texts, but the local newspapers also reported the news.

     Hundreds of messages appeared under the official blog, which usually had a very quiet comment area, in just one day, which was enough to show the enthusiasm of the citizens of Youshi for this matter.

     In addition to the increased attention and discussion, the process of establishing a protected area was also accelerated.

     The leader of the fishery department took the initiative to call Li Yaolin and said that her plan to establish a protected area on Xingzhou Island was half done. The leader proposed to establish a municipal protected area first, because the application procedures for this level of protected area were not as complicated and troublesome as those at the provincial and national levels. 

     As long as the protection station agreed and the municipal leaders agreed, it would be considered a success. In the future, if it passed the provincial review, it could naturally be upgraded to a provincial protected area.

     There was no reason for Li Yaolin to refuse.

     This wave of official propaganda caused the number of people visiting Xingzhou Island to surge in a short period of time. On the first Saturday of August, the total number of tourists reached more than 600. Fortunately, additional flights were added on Saturdays and Sundays, otherwise it would be impossible to carry so many tourists to the island with the fixed flights.

      Taking advantage of this wave of popularity, Li Yaolin began to promote the diving project.

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