Highest 6.37 lakh Olive Ridley turtles arrive at Rushikulya Beach in Odisha to lay their eggs en masse

The world’s largest known rookery, Gahirmatha beach in Odisha’s Kendrapara district, welcomes the arrival of Olive Ridley turtles as well.

This year’s arrival of 6.37 lakh Olive Ridley sea turtles at Rushikulya coast for mass nesting has set a new record for the beach in Ganjam district of Odisha.

More than 6.37 lakh Olive Ridley turtles deposited eggs on the seashore at the Rushikulya rookery in Ganjam district this year, shattering all previous records for the endangered species’ mass nesting.

Olive Ridley turtles began mass nesting on the three km of beach between Podampeta and Bateshwar on February 23 and continued for eight days. According to Sunny Khokkar, divisional forest officer (DFO) of Berhampur, at least 6,37,008 turtles laid eggs during the time period, which is 86,000 higher than the previous year.

Last year, during the mass nesting that began in the third week of March 2022, 5,50,317 turtles laid eggs. The nesting took place along a six-kilometer stretch of beach from Gokharkuda to Podempeta. “As the mass nesting took place a month ahead of the schedule this year, we expect the eggs to hatch early and more hatchlings will emerge. All necessary precautions have been taken to safeguard the eggs in the rookery. “A sufficient number of personnel, including locals, have been engaged to keep an eye on the eggs and predators,” the DFO stated.

Predators including jackals, wild dogs, boars, and birds will be on the search as the female turtles return to the water after laying their eggs. The officials have built fencing around the location to protect the eggs. Almost 3,200 turtles have been tagged by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Gopalpur, this year. Anil Mohapatra, a scientist at ZSI, stated that the tagging was carried out to examine the endangered species’ migration path.

“Our objective is to study the inter-rookery migration of these delicate marine species besides their gestation period,” he said. The turtles were fitted with metallic flipper tags. The exercise was carried out in collaboration with the State Forest department, Mohapatra stated.