The Homeless Turtles

Every year, many turtles killed by trawlers wash up on the beach.

The Gahirmatha beach in Orissa is the biggest nesting site of these turtles in the world. There are two other nesting sites of Olive Ridleys close to the mouths of the Devi and Rishikulya rivers in the state. However, these are much smaller than the site at Gahirmatha.

In fact, mass nesting of Olive Ridleys has already started at Gahirmatha. Nearly 50,000 Olive Ridley turtles have crawled up the beach since February 9, 2007. Soon the entire area will be crawling with adult turtles laying eggs in their sandy nests.

The turtles arrive in the Orissa waters after traversing long distances in October, the beginning of their breeding season, every year. They have their first mass nesting between January and March, followed by another nesting spell of lesser intensity 30 to 45 days later.

Reckless Fishing

While mass nesting is a joy to watch, the celebrations have been muted for the last few years. Large-scale killing of Olive Ridley turtles has been casting a gloomy shadow on the beaches. Biswajit Mohanty is the secretary of Wildlife Society of Orissa (WSO) and the state coordinator of Operation Kachnap (Operation Turtle), a campaign to save Olive Ridley turtles. According to Mohanty, at least 1,300,000 turtles have been killed in Orissa in the past 14 years, 5,753 of them during the last two months of 2006 alone.

The chief culprits are the mechanized fishing boats and trawlers which use nets that trap and choke the turtles rather quickly. A large number of turtles are also killed when hit by the propellers of the mechanized fishing vessels.

With turtle casualties mounting, a concerned government declared 20 kilometers of sea off the Gahirmatha coast a marine sanctuary since 1997, prohibiting fishing in the area. This ban on fishing is applicable throughout the whole year. It has been extended to the mouths of the Devi and Rishikulya rivers, the two other turtle nesting sites in the state, but only for seven months (from November to May) each year.

The ban, however, is being openly violated by the big fishing trawlers. They have been making regular forays into the no-fishing zone, adding to the death figures of the turtles. The fishermen manning these trawlers deal with turtles trapped in their nets with extreme cruelty, sometimes throwing acid into their eyes. Turtles blinded with acid have been found dead at some places along the state's 480-kilometer coastline. In other instances, carcasses of maimed and mutilated Olive Ridleys have also been recovered.

Notwithstanding sustained pressure from environmentalists, the government has failed to do much to protect these ecosensitive turtles, which are one of the most harmless creatures found in the sea. The government has even failed to enforce its own orders with regard to the use of Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) by the fishing vessels which have defied the laws with impunity. The TEDs, which allow an escape route to a trapped turtle, are yet to be installed by a single fishing vessel operating in Orissa. The authorities have yet to charge any of the violators, however.

Violation

Mohanty examines a dead turtle which washed up on the beach.

Significantly, there have also been several instances of fishing vessels from neighboring Indian states like West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh entering Orissa waters and fishing in the prohibited zone. Well-armed, the crews of these trawlers often behave like high sea pirates, opening fire on any vessel that chases them. Government boats patrolling the sea are usually scared of intercepting the rogue fishing trawlers. This further exerts a heavy toll on the fragile turtles.

On the other hand, owners of small mechanized boats are up in arms against the government ban on fishing to protect the Olive Ridleys. With the ban threatening their livelihood, fishermen in seaside villages close to Gahirmatha beach have been committing suicide with alarming regularity. There have been at least 10 cases of suicide by fishermen in this area in the last two years. Most of them took this extreme step because they were unable to repay the loans they had obtained from local money lenders as the fishermen's income dropped because of the fishing ban.

Traditional fishermen describe the ban as irrational. They claim that big fishing trawlers are getting away with the violation of the ban. On the other hand, the authorities are unnecessarily harassing the owners of smaller crafts that hardly cause any harm to the turtles. The smaller fishermen have also been organizing protests over the issue. The government, however, does not seem to be willing to lift the ban on fishing. They won't even consider the demands of smaller fishermen for relaxation of the restriction on fishing in certain parts of the sea.

The authorities engaged in turtle conservation at the moment appear to be concentrating more on checking the illegal trade in Olive Ridleys. The turtles' flesh is considered a delicacy in some of the Indian states. It is in especially high demand in the markets of Kolkata, the capital city of West Bengal and one of the biggest metropolises of India. Olive Ridley turtles poached in Orissa waters land in large numbers in Kolkata and some other cities of West Bengal regularly. This illegal trade continues despite some seizures and arrests made by the authorities in the past.

Obstacles and Predators

A large number of these turtles and their eggs are also killed at their nesting sites by predators like stray dogs, whose menace seems to be growing by the day. With thousands of turtles being killed by dogs every year, the government has now decided to check the growing stray dog population on the Gahirmatha beach.

The government has decided to join hands with Blue Cross, an animal rights protection group, and the central animal welfare board to start the drive to castrate dogs roaming the Gahirmatha beach. The neutered dogs will then be released in villages away from the beach. Depending on its success, the dog sterilization drive would be extended later to the other nesting sites of these turtles.

Quite a large number of these dogs come from Wheeler Islands, a missile testing range situated close to the Gahirmatha beach. The defense authorities on Wheeler Islands have also been requested to mask the big lights on the islands during the period of the mass nesting of the turtles. These lights are likely to disorient the young turtle hatchlings trying to make their way back to the sea after emerging from their eggs.

Conserving an Endangered Species

The latest on the Olive Ridley turtle conservation front is the move to fit satellite transmitter collars on at least 70 of them to keep track of their movements along the Orissa coastline. These instruments, called Platform Transmitter Terminals (PTT), will be tagged on the turtles by scientists from the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India.

Costing about US$5,000 each, PTTs send high-frequency signals that are received by polar-orbiting weather satellites, which orbit the earth at a much closer distance than other satellites. This allows them to have better resolutions than traditional ones. The transmitters fitted on the turtles have temperature sensors and counters. These will indicate the proportions of time spent by a turtle on the surface of the water and underwater. The data collected with the help of PTTs will be analyzed to produce strategies for the turtles' conservation.

However, the immediate need is to check the indiscriminate fishing activity of the trawlers in the turtle zone since the government itself admits that trawlers are the biggest culprits.

With a view to step up vigil at vital points along the coast during the turtles' nesting season, the wildlife wing of the government has set up several observation camps. These camps are being manned by forest and wildlife department officials equipped with walkie talkies and speed boats. They are equipped ready to chase rogue vessels found violating the fishing restrictions. The coast guard at the Paradeep port, the biggest port of Orissa and one of the biggest in the eastern region of India, has also been asked to cooperate with the officials manning the observation camps.

The erosion of the Gahirmatha beach by tidal waves is also likely to reduce the nesting area of the turtles. The state government is taking steps to contain the natural damage. In the past, similar problems once led to destruction of thousands of turtle eggs with nesting turtles trampling their own eggs owing to space constraint. Once experts have studied the tidal surges in the area, they can recommend steps to contain the damage as much as possible. Environmentalists appear seriously concerned over the issue because unfavorable conditions may force Olive Ridley turtles to shun Gahirmatha as a nesting site.

In fact, in 1997 and again in 1998, these turtles did not turn up on the beach for nesting because the conditions were not favorable for their arrival. They resumed mass nesting at Gahirmatha again once the conditions were back to normal. However, the continued unabated massacre of Olive Ridley turtles on the Orissa coast runs the risk of changing the mass nesting forever. The danger extends beyond Gahirmatha to nesting sites like the Devi and Rishukulya river mouths. They all run the risk of losing the right to host these beautiful marine creatures during their nesting season. The state must take immediate steps to make Orissa coast safer for the endangered Olive Ridleys. Otherwise, these turtles might soon find a better home and leave the beaches there for good.

Ashutosh Mishra is a senior freelance journalist based in the eastern Indian state of Orissa. Starting his career with the Times Of India in 1986, he has worked for a number of publications including the Sunday Mail and the Pioneer. He has reported extensively on human condition and environment in Indian states like Bihar and Orissa. He won the Grassroots-Capart prize for his story on child sale in Bolangir. He can be contacted by e-mail at zasutosh@yahoo.co.in