Kosgoda (Sri Lanka), July 26 - It's 6.30 p.m. Dusk begins to give way to nightfall when a man walks up to the beach here with a big box containing a special load -- three-day-old turtles. The box is tipped over, the hatchlings scamper towards the ocean and within minutes they are bobbing away into the waves.

Yet another `regular' day for 47-year-old K. Chandrasiri Abbrew who has released 3.5 million turtle hatchlings in the past three decades.

As the baby turtles moved further away into the sea, Abbrew told a visting IANS correspondent: 'It gives me immense happiness to save the lives of these baby turtles.'

Abbrew, who runs the Sea Turtle Sanctuary and Research Centre that was started by his father, says that the baby turtles have to be released only after the predatory birds are no longer flying in the sky.

'When we release them, the baby turtles make a dash for the sea. However, some of them find it difficult and we gently help them,' he says with a beatific smile.

Dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, Abbrew said that from 1979 to 1982, they used to pay Rs.5 for 100 eggs to the fishermen who brought the turtle eggs to them.

'The fishermen would find the turtle eggs and we paid them money so that the eggs were not sold in the market. We want to save the turtles,' he explains while standing at the palm-fringed beach in Kosgoda, about 80 km from Colombo.

From 1986 to 1990, they paid Rs.25 for 100 eggs. The rates for the turtle eggs have constantly gone up with Abbrew today paying Rs.800 for 100 eggs. The eggs are laid by the turtles under the sand on an eight-kilometre stretch of the Kosgoda beach.

Turtle eggs are considered a delicacy in Sri Lanka with exotic dishes being prepared specially during weddings. Turtle meat is in great demand in the island nation.