Royal Thai Navy Third Fleet Turtle Nursery, Khao Lak

An awesome place to visit if you are interested in wildlife. This turtle sanctuary was set up by Queen Sirikit some years ago. This is on the Royal Thai navy base but we found it easily. A navy guy gave us a tour and his English was good. Normally up to 90% of young turtles die or are killed mainly by birds. So this group collect the turtles as they hatch when they are about 3cm long and keep them for about 6 months when that are released. They also rescue turtles which have been injured or trapped in fishing nets.

We visited one afternoon for about an hour. There are several tanks/pools with young turtles (100s). It's very neat to see. There were not very many adult turtles. Just 1 tank with under a dozen. Most were 1-3 months old. It wasn't obvious where one pays. We wandered around before discovering it. It didn't look like they offer tours. There were only a couple other families there.

Hard to find, as google maps might show you weird routes which you can’t take through the military zone. Don’t be put off by the army guys at the entrance of the zone, it’s probably the right place! Leave your passport at the entrance and drive through. The turtles are adorable - however not much information is available in English. I was lucky to have a group of english speaking volunteers working there on the day I visited so got some good information. Still worth the visit as the turtles are ❤️❤️❤️

Interesting and informative. Great to see the fantastic conservation work the Navy are doing.

We visited to se the rescue turtles. It was very interesting. There is a military golf course attatched to the complex.