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Bacterial infection, not power plant, caused turtle deaths: Officials
Dead turtles have been found on the beach a number of times since April 2019. Some were caught in nets while others had plastic waste, detergent, cigarette butts and pieces of wood found in their digestive tracts. Most were found decayed with damaged organs.
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A dead sea turtle is washed up on a beach located near the Sepang Bay coal-fired power plant (PLTU) in Bengkulu. (kompas.com/Courtesy of Kanopi Bengkulu)
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engkulu authorities have concluded that the deaths of 28 turtles in Sepang Bay Beach were caused by a bacterial infection, ruling out earlier suspicions they were killed by untreated waste released by a nearby coal-fired power plant.
The Bengkulu Natural Resource Conservation Center (BKSDA Bengkulu), along with the Bengkulu Environment and Forestry Agency and the provincial station of the Meteorology Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), announced the findings on Friday after conducting laboratory tests on the animals.
“Any party unsatisfied with the government’s test results can challenge them scientifically, but don’t make conclusions unsupported by science,” said Yuliswani, a provincial administration assistant.
Dead turtles have been found on the beach a number of times since April 2019. Some were caught in nets while others had plastic waste, detergent, cigarette butts and pieces of wood found in their digestive tracts. Most were found decayed with damaged organs.
BKSDA Bengkulu conducted necropsies on several turtles on Dec. 5, collecting and sending samples of their organs to the laboratory of the Agriculture Ministry’s veterinary research center in Bogor, West Java.
The center outlined the lab results in a letter dated Jan. 20, stating that the animals were found to have a bacterial infection caused by salmonella and clostridium. The tests found no traces of chemicals.
Environmental group Kanopi Hijau, which had investigated the matter, previously suggested that the deaths had been caused by liquid waste released from the Sepang Bay power plant as some of the dead turtles had been discovered in waters near the facility.
