Bhubaneswar: May 23 is World Turtle Day, an annual event earmarked for celebrating and increasing awareness of turtle species around the world. These species are not very popular like the rest of the animals, but they are sensitive and beautiful, contributing to Nature and its balancing mechanism in their own way. American Tortoise Rescue (ATR) launched the World Turtle Day 13 years ago.
This day is a good way to educate people about how to care for turtles, and to learn what danger they’re in and how to be more aware of what they need. Like in many parts of the world, Odisha too has its own share of turtle population and campaigns to save them.
According to Rabindranath Sahu of Purunabandha village in Ganjam district, who has been working tirelessly to provide the best possible hospitality to his ‘guests’ said: Turtles are Lord Vishnu’s avatar and they should be saved and cared for.
Anil Dhir, historian, who has discovered many Olive Ridleys sculpted on the south wall of the Sun Temple in Konarak, says, “it’s amazing to watch these wonderful creatures and they should be saved from every kind of danger.”
He also said the unusual depiction of a pair of Olive Ridleys mating, with a lotus at the bottom, is missed by visitors as it is covered by the scaffoldings put up by the Archaeological Survey of India.
In Hindu mythology, the tortoise is said to be the first living creature – the progenitor – and is equated with the Pole Star, which, by its alignment, is related to the earth’s axis. The flat lower shell of the tortoise is the plane of the terrestrial world and its rounded upper shell is the celestial world.
In fact, Olive Ridleys have been nesting on Odisha’s coast for ages. The depiction of the turtle mating could have been the outcome of the keen observation of stone carvers of yore, who have replicated on stone, what they had observed during the annual breeding.
There could also be the religious aspect, as the turtles and the lotus bloom have symbolic cultural and spiritual significance in Hindu mythology. Symbolically, the retraction of the turtle’s head into its shell is regarded as a conscious turning inward as in meditation and signifies an advanced spiritual state.
However, in reality, Olive Ridleys have faced a variety of threats off Odisha coast over the past four decades. Their high mortality rate due to mechanized commercial fishing has posed the greatest direct threat to these gentle creatures.
Ports, fishing jetties, defence installations and other coastal development activities threaten to destroy most of the nesting habitats. The nesting sites at the estuaries of Devi and Rushikulya rivers are also threatened due to the effluents in the water. Such things should be stopped and the gentle turtles should be cared and saved forever.