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| Record
nesting of endangered turtles on Orissa's beaches |
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More
than 900,000 endangered Olive Ridley turtles
have nested on various beaches in Orissa,
breaking all past records. While more than
750,000 |
| turtles
have laid eggs in the world famous Gahirmatha
beach in Kendrapara district, 174 km from
here, 150,000 have nested in Rusikulya river
beach. |
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| Apart from
Gahirmatha and Rusikulya mouth, mass nesting generally
also takes place in the Devi river mouth in Puri
district, 130 km from here. But no nesting has been
reported yet from this beach this year. Female turtles
tend to move on shore to nest in large synchronized
concentrations. Now this only occurs at a few sites
in the world, with Orissa being one of the most
important. The turtles come to the shore in the
night, dig a pit in the sand and lay eggs. After
covering it with sand they return to the sea. |
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| Three varieties
of endangered turtles visit Orissa beaches to lay
eggs, but the Olive Ridleys arrive in the largest
numbers. Every winter about 600,000-700,000 Olive
Ridley turtles come ashore to lay millions of eggs.
The endangered Olive Ridley turtle that grows up
to 75 cm in length is found in tropical regions
of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Mass
nesting of Olive Ridleys was reported on a 100 km-stretch
on the Orissa coast as early as 1727. |
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| However, the
turtles are under threat from fishing trawlers,
boats and Gill nets, in the past five years about
75,000 turtle Carcasses have been found on Orissa's
beaches. Last year alone an estimated 20,000 were
found killed. The turtles that come to nest in Rusikulya
face an added threat from Bharat Petroleum, which
has undertaken construction work on the Rusikulya
river mouth. A record number of sea turtles have
been nesting on the Orissa coast, more than one
million olive ridley sea turtles were recorded nesting
at Nasi II Island at Gahirmatha. |
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| The beleaguered
turtles have, however, even bigger obstacles to
overcome. While the mass nesting was in progress,
nearly two dozen large mechanized trawlers were
seen operating close to the beach, in direct violation
of the law. There is no patrolling by the Fisheries
Department to keep out the intruding trawlers and
the lives of thousands of turtles that have congregated
at Rusikulya to nest are at risk. |
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| Turtle researcher
Bivash Pandav discovered the Rusikulya nesting beach
in 1995. The last mass nesting there took place
in 1998 when About 12,000 sea turtles emerged from
the sea to nest. There are only two other known
mass nesting sites in Orissa; Gahirmatha and the
Devi River mouth. |
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