Over 641,000 Olive Ridley sea turtles have laid eggs at the Rushikulya rookery in Ganjam district in this ongoing nesting season, surpassing the previous record of 637,000 turtles in the 2022-23 season, officials said on Saturday.
By the time the nesting season, locally known as arribada, ends in the first week of March, the number of turtles is expected to go up to 700,000 at the Rushikulya sea beach between Podampeta to Bateshwar, Prem Kumar Jha, principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) of Odisha, said.
“Record-breaking 6.41 lakh Olive Ridley Turtles have arrived at Rushikulya for the arribada. It’s a great news,” he said.
Olive Ridley turtles are the smallest species of marine turtles that normally lay eggs in Rushikulya and Gahirmatha beaches of Odisha. The Ryshikulya beach in Ganjam district, is one of the world’s largest nesting sites, apart from the coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica.
The turtles lay their around 100 eggs in a foot-and-a-half-deep sand pits. The eggs incubate for a period of 45-55 days depending on the weather conditions. After arribada, the females head back into the sea and typically migrate to their foraging grounds. Once the eggs begin to hatch, baby turtles crawl towards the sea.
The turtles skipped mass nesting at Rushikulya in 2015-16, 2018-19, 2020-21 and 2023-24 seasons, data from the forest department showed.
{{/usCountry}}The turtles skipped mass nesting at Rushikulya in 2015-16, 2018-19, 2020-21 and 2023-24 seasons, data from the forest department showed.
{{/usCountry}}Experts, however, could not ascribe a reason for this.
“What we know for sure is once they do mass nesting on a beach, they skip it for couple of years. There are several environmental reasons such as unseasonal rain, absence of southern winds and El Nino. But it’s difficult to say why the turtles skip mass nesting a particular year,” said Bibhash Pandav, a turtle researcher at Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun.
Though Gahirmatha beach in Bhitarkanika was once the biggest rookery of the turtles in the country, beach erosion has reduced the area forcing most of the turtles to migrate to Rushikulya river mouth.
Officials in the state wildlife department said that to facilitate smooth nesting this season, a 5-km stretch along the coast was fenced while joint sea patrolling was intensified. “Since the turtles get disoriented due to light, the ports and industrial establishments were asked to dim the string lights of their facilities near the nesting sites,” Jha said.
Separately, forest staff, coast guard, marine police and marine fishery departments have been patrolling the sea to prevent fishing within 20km from the nesting site on the coast since November 1 last year, and the exercise will continue till May 31, said Berhampur divisional forest officer (DFO) Sunny Khokhar.
The Indian Coast Guard also recently inaugurated “Operation Olivia”, a comprehensive initiative aimed at safeguarding the turtles during their nesting period in Paradip. Using drones, coast guard vessels, and Dornier aircraft, officials tried to prevent any alien intruders into the riverbeds where the turtles are laying their eggs, a press release from the Coast Guard said.