Over one lakh olive ridleys died in 13 years in Orissa Coast

Bhubaneswar, Apr 22 (UNI) Over one lakh turtles have been found dead on the Orissa coast, the largest mass nesting site for turtles, during the last 13 years making it the ''world's largest turtle graveyard''.

In a statement here, Operation Kachhap Coordinator Biswajit Mohanty said despite high casualty the Orissa government refused to acknowledge that thousands of turtles continue to be killed due to lack of protection. Last year alone, more than 9,000 turtles died against the state government's figure of 3,217, he added.

He alleged the state government was yet to implement the Central Empowered Committee(CEC) orders for turtle protection passed in April, 2004.

The situation is a chilling repeat of the Sariska tigers issue where both the Centre and the state governments went on covering up the truth by proclaiming upto the last day that Sariska's tigers were doing fine when the ground reality was different, Mr Mohanty said.

The endangered olive ridleys continue to be massacred despite availability of Rs 10 million fund donated by Indian Oil for buying speed boats for patrolling the coast to ensure their protection.

Similarly, the fisheries department, had not spent a Rs 10 million grant to purchase speed boats even after eight years, he added.

The law had stipulated that trawlers in Orissa have to use Turtle Excluder Devices(TED) but not a single trawler has been using TEDs, he said.

''Fishing has been rampant at Devi mouth inside the prohibited zone where 30-40 trawlers could be seen every day. One could witness more dead turtles at Devi river mouth owing to uncontrolled illegal fishing,'' he added.

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