Olive Ridley Sea Turtles
The Olive ridley turtles are the smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles found in the world, inhabiting warm waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.
These turtles, along with their cousin the Kemps ridley turtle, are best known for their unique mass nesting called Arribada, where thousands of females come together on the same beach to lay eggs. Though found in abundance, their numbers have been declining over the past few years, and the species is recognized as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List. (International Union for Conservation of Nature)
Interestingly, females return to the very same beach from where they first hatched, to lay their eggs. During this phenomenal nesting, up to 600,000 and more females emerge from the waters, over a period of five to seven days, to lay eggs. They lay their eggs in conical nests about one and a half feet deep, which they laboriously dig with their hind flippers.
The eastern coast of India is the largest mass nesting site for the Olive-ridley, followed by the coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica. After about 45-65 days, the eggs begin to hatch, and these beaches are swamped with crawling Olive-ridley turtle babies, making their first trek towards the vast ocean.
Olive-ridleys face serious threats across their migratory route, habitat, and nesting beaches, due to human activities such as turtle unfriendly fishing practices, development and exploitation of nesting beaches for ports, and tourist centers. Though international trade in these turtles and their products is banned under CITES Appendix I, (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) they are still extensively poached for their meat, shell, and leather, and their eggs, though illegal to harvest, have a significantly large market around the coastal regions. However, the most severe threat they face is the accidental killing of adult turtles through entanglement in trawl nets and gill nets due to uncontrolled fishing during their mating season around nesting beaches.
Fishing communities in eastern India are setting an example by protecting endangered olive ridley marine turtles during their annual mating and nesting activities, and helping millions of tiny hatchlings reach the sea safely. Keeping a watchful eye over the brood is no easy task. The job is unpaid, usually following a long day at work. Fishermen equipped with a flashlight and a bamboo pole identify nests at risk and carefully digs up the spongy eggs. They are relocated to freshly dug hatcheries a safe distance away, ringed with fencing and marked with a flag an arduous process that can be repeated hundreds of times in a single nesting season.
East Coast of India, 2019.