90 females 'tagged' Ridleys return to coast to nest
- Berhampur: Wildlife scientists are excited as around 90 female adult Olive Ridley turtles, which were tagged by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) in the last two years on the Odisha coast, have returned on the beach near the mouth of the Rushikulya river in Ganjam district to lay eggs.
- "Over 4.65 lakh Olive Ridley turtles, an endangered species, nested in the 5km long rookery of river Rushikulya in the last three day till Sunday morning," said Amlan Nayak, divisional forest officer (DFO) Berhampur Forest division. Mass nesting of the Olive Ridleys started near Rushikulya river mouth from Thursday, over a month ahead of last year.
- "In the last three days, we have detected around 90 female turtles which returned to the Odisha coast for nesting this time," said Anil Mohapatra, a senior scientist and officer-in-charge of Estuarine Biology Research Centre (EBRC), Regional Centre of ZSI, Gopalpur. In the last year, they had detected at least 12 tagged turtles during mass nesting period in Rushikulya river beach.
- Most of these turtles had been tagged in the Rushikulya river mouth rookery in the last two years under the tagging of the Olive Ridley turtles programmed carried out jointly by the ZS1 and state forest department, he said. In the last two years, the scientists of ZSI had tagged around 8,500 turtles at the Rushikulya rookery and Gahiramatha marine sanctuary, he said. "We have collected the photographs of the tags from the turtles. We will conduct detailed studies on the tags after completing the fresh tagging process this time, 'he said. "In the last three days, the ZSI scientists in collabo- ration with the forest personnel have been freshly tagging around 2,150 turtles, said Mohapatra.