Olive Ridley turtle hatching season begins

Kozhikode, Dec 10: Olive Ridley turtle hatchlings have started emerging at the Kolavipalam beach near here, a favourite nesting ground for the endangered species, a conservationist today said.

As many as 65 hatchlings have already emerged from the artificial nests since the process began yesterday Suresh Babu, president of Theeram Samrakshana Samithy (TSS), an NGO conserving the turtles for more than a decade, told UNI.

Immediately after hatching they had started moving towards the deep sea but the TSS prevented them and kept under their safe custody for some time to protect them from becoming easy prey to predators such as seagulls, crows, dogs and jackals if released immediately, he said.

The new arrivals, which had attracted many visitors, including school children from the nearby locality, would be released to the sea in a week or so, he said.

Talking about conservation, Mr Babu said TSS volunteers had launched patrolling along the shore to collect the eggs and deposit them in the hatcheries made of about one-and-a-half-foot deep pits.

Till now, he said about 17 Olive Ridley turtles swam ashore since the start of the season in mid-September and laid 1,459 eggs.

The activist said, earlier a large number of turtles used to flock Kolavipalam, the second largest nesting ground for the endangered species after the Gahirmatha Coast in Orissa, but the number decreased drastically due to shrinking of shore as a result of illegal sandmining.

He said many of the hatcheries at Kolavippalam were washed away by surging water as the coast cannot withstand tidal waves following the intermittent mining.

Olive Ridley is one of the seven species of sea turtles found worldwide, all listed as endangered. Thirty to 40 per cent of the world's Olive Ridley population is estimated to reside in the Indian coastal waters. It is a globally migrating species and nests on sandy beaches close to estuaries or bays.

UNI