The clip which went viral on social media last week shows a man repeatedly grabbing the turtle by its shell and neck while snorkeling, as several others surround the animal and block it from surfacing, the South China Morning Post reported.<\/p>\n
At one point, the man appears to stand on the turtle’s shell as it struggles to swim away.<\/p>\n
Marine conservation group Tropical Research and Conservation Center Borneo condemned the act, describing the behavior as “deeply disturbing and unacceptable,” New Straits Times reported.<\/p>\n
The group advised the public or witnesses to document such incidents safely and report them to the relevant authorities instead of confronting offenders directly.<\/p>\n
The footage ignited anger online, with many Malaysians urging stricter enforcement and bans on operators that enable such conduct.<\/p>\n
“Don’t do such stupid things. Boatmen always remind us not to touch turtles,” a netizen wrote.<\/p>\n
“Absolutely disgusting behavior! They should be fired for such unethical practices which is reflecting of the company they work for,” another wrote.<\/p>\n
“Bloody tourists are simply hideous! People who do this should be slapped with hefty fine,” another commented.<\/p>\n
Redang Island, about 45 km off Peninsular Malaysia’s east coast, lies within the Redang Marine Park and serves as a key nesting site for endangered green and hawksbill turtles, both protected under Malaysian law.<\/p>\n
Malaysia’s Fisheries Act prohibits catching, touching, or harassing marine animals within marine park boundaries, with penalties of up to RM100,000 (US$24,000) or two years’ imprisonment.<\/p>\n
Authorities have launched a probe into the case, and the nationalities of those in the video remain unknown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The clip which went viral on social media last week shows a man repeatedly grabbing the turtle by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,59383,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-94138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-tourists-in-malaysia-criticized-for-manhandling-rare-sea-turtle-vnexpress-international","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}