Kendrapara: Personnel of the Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary Saturday sighted a couple of nests of endangered Olive Ridley turtles at Nasi-1 island. This is the first time during this turtle season that the forest personnel have spotted the nests of the endangered species, Subrat Kumar Patra, Ranger of Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary said.
According to Patra, endangered marine turtles, protected under the migratory species convention and convention of international trade on wildlife flora and fauna, laid eggs Friday night at Nasi-1 beach and later, they returned to the sea during wee hours of Saturday.
Female turtles lay 100-120 eggs at one go. These turtles arrive at the coast at the dead of the night and after laying eggs, they get back into deep sea waters. Hatchlings emerge from these eggs after 45-60 days and find their way to the sea creating a cacophony.
It is one of the nature’s rare phenomenon where babies grow without their mothers. During the breeding season, males and females migrate from their feeding ground to the breeding ground. Mating occurs in offshore waters of the breeding.
The female turtles tend to move towards beaches in large synchronized concentrations. They lay their eggs at midnight in 45 centimeters pits, which they dig two-three ft long pits to lay eggs with their rear flippers. After laying the eggs in these pits, the female turtles cover the nests with sand and return to the sea in a zigzag manner to confuse predators about the location of the nests.
The endangered species rarely turn up in such large numbers anywhere in the planet which come en-masse to Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary, Patra said.
The forest officials have set up two offshore camps at Babubali and Agarnasi while 14 onshore camps were constructed under Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary from Dhamara to Devi mouth to restrict the illegal entry of trawlers.
Meanwhile, mating season of these turtles has been going on as thousands of mating turtle pairs were spotted by the forest personnel.
According to Patra, in the ongoing turtle season, the forest personnel have intensified patrolling within the sanctuary to reduce the turtle mortalities by restricting the trawlers to trespass unauthorisedly at the Gahirmatha.
As many as 22 boats and 148 fishermen were arrested by the Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary personnel for illegally catching fish with trawlers after trespassing into the marine sanctuary since the forest personnel have imposed a ban on trawler fishing November 1. PNN