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Cuisine in Melaka

BABY TURTLES HATCHED IN MELAKA IN 2010

MELAKA, Saturday 12 March 2011 (Bernama) — A total of 23,677 baby turtles were hatched at the turtle management centre at Padang Kemunting in Masjid Tanah near here last year.

This was 48.82 per cent of the 48,503 eggs incubated at the centre, Chairman of the Melaka Industry, Commerce and Entrepreneurial and Cooperative Development Committee Datuk Md Yunos Husin said today.

He said that 137,097 baby turtles were hatched between 2006 and last year.

The number was 56 per cent 242,992 eggs incubated at the centre, Yunos told reporters here after launching the agro-based entrepreneurs carnival at the Melaka International Trade Centre at Ayer Keroh here.

He said that 2,031 tartar turtles landed on Melaka beaches at the same time, more than at any other spot in the country.

Md Yunos said the centre, which was set up in 1997, found 50 dead turtles in coastal Melaka, some of them caught in fishing traps, during the same period.

He said there was a huge jump in the number of visitors to the centre last year — 21,574, compared to 9,107 in 2009 and 2,447 in 2008.

According to Yunos, there were now 3,200 Melaka-born entrepreneurs, about 1,600 of them in agro-based industries.

Yunos said the main aim of the three-day carnival which began yesterday was to encourage networking among the entrepreneurs.