OverTwo Lakh Olive Ridley Turtles Faced Unnatural Death In Odisha Coast In 20 Years! Conservation Needs A Relook

OverTwo Lakh Olive Ridley Turtles Faced Unnatural Death In Odisha Coast In 20 Years! Conservation Needs A Relook

By D N Singh

With the footfalls of winter, Odisha coasts wear a rare spectacle. Come December, and thousands and thousands of Olive Ridley turtles arrive at several coasts of Odisha for nesting.

This millions of years old specie, Olive Ridley Turtle or Lepidochelys olivacea accomplish an arduous journey on sea of thousands kms to nest at Gahirmatha sanctuary in Bhitarkanika National Park in Odisha,

But the flip side is , thousands of them face unnatural death every year.

According to an estimation by Wildlife Society of Odisha, about 200,000 Olive Ridley turtles have died in the last two decades in Odisha coasts.

It is a superb yet shocking blend of nature’s manifestation. The lovely marine species, as old as the dinosaurs’ time, add an uncommon beauty dotting the shores and on the other, sadly, human neglect leaves thousands of turtle bodies strewn over the coasts.

A touching reality which the authorities cannot deny that, somewhere the conservation measures fail and that too with an unfailing regularity.

It goes without saying that conservation of the species is as important as the creation of  safe habitats for any species.

It has reduced to merely a seasonal event when the departments concerned mouth homilies over conservation of this species who make their way to Odisha from as far Caspian sea, Sri lanka and other coastal fringes 1000 kms from Odisha.

What a homing instinct these innocent marine creatures have! That they come from so far off places and repeat the same feat each year, unfailingly despite all the hurdles on the way..

Largest Rookery In The World

Gahirmatha is considered to be the largest rookery in the world for the Olive Ridleys. Among the nesting sites along Gahirmatha, Babubahali, Rushikulya river mouth and Devi river beds offer the most conducive environment and a repeat destination for them.

 Olive Ridley or Lepidochelys olivacea is considered to be one of the oldest living creatures on earth and perhaps as old, but extinct, as dinosaurs who had perished due to some climatic reasons or for some other reasons.

“However, sea turtles coming to Odisha coast are not safe for a variety of reasons”feels Biswajit Mohanty, an animal activist who heads the Wildlife Society of Odisha.

Mohanty, who has been playing a voluntary role for Olive Ridleys, sees that in” man-made threats for the turtles, in the last three decades were more dangerous for the species since they are irreversible and have no wisdom to deal with such a situation”.

Going by a study, it was, perhaps over several million years ago dinosaurs and few more flora and fauna disappeared forever. So it should not lead to a situation where these rare species also become extinct in years to come.

One of the oldest living species, Olive Ridley, is one of the many such species like Leatherback, Loggerheads, Hawksbill and few others dating back to the period much before the time of Dinosaurs.

Few years back the sight of a dead turtle on the coast and predators feasting on it, was a shocking ones and now-a-days myriad such scenes only invoke modest perturbation unmindful of the, so far, unanticipated threats to a rare species.

For the wildlife department it has, down the last many years, the casualties remained confined to statistics and the government, as a whole, has never laid emphasis to arrest or minimize the causes of such un-natural deaths due to rampant illegal fishing activities.

 After mating off-shore, the females arrive at the beach where they dig holes in the sand to lay eggs. When their hatchlings emerge, they drift off with the tidal waves and migrate to their feeding grounds several thousand kilometers away.

Although there is no empirical study to ascertain the numbers, hundreds of thousand turtles head for the coasts of Odisha for nesting between December and April.

Causes of death and remedies

Illegal fishing by motorized boats and fishing trawlers are few of the principal reasons behind the deaths. Mainly before the month when the turtles keep mating in the deep sea they face the accidents by such vessels and get fatally injured or die.

The prohibitions on fishing in deep sea at such times are never enforced with the seriousness required to be attached and the result is obvious. Ironically many of them get entangled in the fishing nets and often die of asphyxiation and injuries.

Besides the un-natural deaths, the other ominous reason that looms over this innocent species is the demand for their eggs. Each turtle lays eggs numbering about 100 to 150 eggs in the pits and many of them are devoured by the animals straying on the beach and the other is the high protein eggs and the demand of turtle meat in parts of West Bengal .

A study showed that over 50,000 turtles are transported from the coasts of Odisha to Kolkata during the nesting season every year. Turtle meat in certain areas is in demand.

And all that goes off the vigil tangent of the forest and wildlife department