Hello, turtle friend.

The months-old blob seen above is an Asian giant softshell turtle. Scientists long thought this species was extinct in the Cambodian portion of the Mekong River — until they discovered some stragglers in the early 2000s.

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Since then, conservation groups have worked with local communities and officials to boost the wild population of these endangered turtles. A team recently released 150 hatchlings back into their natural habitat, bringing the running total to more than 7,700 baby turtles in the past 10 years.

Credit: Yoeung Sun/wildlife conservation society

Huge swaths of the turtle's habitat in southeast Asia have disappeared due to urban and industrial development along the Mekong River, which flows more than 3,000 miles from China to Vietnam. The sand where turtles breed is routinely hauled away for use in construction projects, while fishing nets scoop up hatchlings. Poachers also take turtles and their eggs to sell for food.

"The species has quite a wide historical range across Asia ... but much of that range is now completely gone," said Joe Walston, who worked extensively with softshell turtles in Cambodia for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), where he's now vice president for global conservation.

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The freshwater turtle species is officially listed as endangered by the IUCN Red List, an authoritative inventory of threatened plant and animal species.

"Giant" hatchlings. Credit: MENGEY ENG/wildlife conservation society

For the last decade, WCS, Conservation International, the Turtle Survival Alliance and local groups have worked to protect turtle nests and breeding grounds. Their goal is to ensure eggs will multiply and hatch, and that baby turtles grow strong enough to eventually fend for themselves in the wild.

Walston said he first went to Cambodia shortly after the end of the Khmer Rouge, the brutal regime that controlled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.

"We had no idea what the state of species would be in the area," he recalled. "But we did know that the Mekong River holds some of the largest examples of freshwater turtles and fish, including the giant Mekong catfish, the giant Mekong ray, and some of these giant softshell turtles."

Credit: Yoeung Sun/wildlife conservation society

Initial surveys in 2003 and in 2007 found two small populations of the blob-like turtles along a 30-mile stretch between the Kratie and Stung Treng provinces.

Conservation efforts soon followed, including a program to hire former egg collectors to help search for and protect nests instead of harvesting the eggs, said Sun Yoeung, WCS's project coordinator for Asian giant softshell turtles.

Turtle friend, we're so glad you made it.

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