The largest turtle in Friday's rescue attempt, died last night after an effort to rest it in the fisheries department tanks at Sopu over the weekend, failed to revive it.

The turtle was believed to be over 150 years old, according to Tonga's turtle lady, Jo Kupu, who said that today they had released another four injured turtles by taking them out to sea this afternoon.

"They looked really happy and swam away," she said.

Jo said she could not wait for the experts to come from SPREP in Samoa to put satellite tracking tags on the turtles. "They said they could not come over to Tonga until next Saturday and that is too long to wait. I even offered to pay their airfares if they could come sooner."

Jo said that the church conferences being held in Tonga this week presented a great danger for the turtles who were coming ashore at this time to nest and were being caught alive to be sold for slaughter for the conference feasting. "I have heard that there were actually 15 turtles in the shipment last week, and that another five big turtles have been killed in Vava'u."

"This whole thing is really annoying to me," said Jo. "I am interested in conservation but the fisheries don't care."

Tongan law allows harvesting of male turtles but few people can tell the difference between males and females and the season is not actively enforced.

The Hawksbill turtle, which nests in Tonga every two or three years, is on the IUCN red alert list of the world's critically endangered species, along with some other species of turtles.