VISAKHAPATNAM: On many balmy nights of Vizag, its pristine beaches turn into cosy cradles. With the slight nip in the air between January and March and the warmth of the moist sand from the day’s sun, the coast becomes a perfect creche for hundreds of endangered Olive Ridley turtles to lay their eggs and leave them to hatch. However, this year, when these turtles crawl to the coast, little will they know that some stretches are watery graves for their species.
TOI visited a few isolated stretches of the beach on the outskirts of Vizag only to find some 10 carcasses of the turtles on the IT SEZ beach near Rushikonda. These carcasses, all ranging from a few days old to a few months old were washed ashore on the 2km stretch with some even left bare to the skeletal remains. A days-old carcass was seen floating on the waves, disintegrating in the water.
Olive Ridley is a Schedule-1 animal according to the Wildlife Protection Act. Every death must be analysed, counted and a postmortem done.
Fishing trawlers have a big role to play in rising mortality of turtles
The sighting of carcasses was confirmed by local environment activist Vivek Rathod who added that ahead of this stretch, on the other beaches all the way till Bheemli, at least five more carcasses have been spotted by his team.
“This is extremely alarming and not common at all. While turtle deaths are observed every now and then, spotting 10-15 carcasses on the coasts of just one stretch in Vizag raises several concerns,” said Rathod who has been attempting to raise awareness on turtle conservation for several years.
Most of the turtles were Olive ridleys and two were green turtles. While their gender is not known, it is likely they are females who were coming ashore to lay eggs.
A turtle conservation expert and founder president of Visakha Society for Protection and Care of Animal, Pradeep Kumar Nath, says the turtles mostly died at sea in a 3 km radius from the coast. “Turtles are likely dying when they come closer to the coast for mating (from October to December) and nesting (January to March). We fear that they are hit by the propellers of the mechanised fishing boats,” explained Nath.
Rathod adds that trawlers play a big role in the rising mortality. “It is possible that they got caught in trawler nets. Once they are caught, they remain trapped in it for hours and when unable to come to the surface to breathe, they die of suffocation,” Rathod added. Nath added that despite multiple rules to use turtle exclusion devices (TED), which allow for the turtle to free themselves from trawler nets, they are not used by all fisherfolk.
A January 2021 survey by CSIR- National Institute of Oceanography in association with Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) confirmed this. As part of the survey the research team led by GPS Murty, scientist-in-charge of NIO, surveyed a 12 km stretch from Gosthani river (near Bheemili) to Kancheru beach in Annaram panchayat (towards the Orissa coast) and found 62 carcasses.
The research showed that except turtles no other mass mortality of fish or shellfish was reported despite those being more fragile organisms. This implied that the deaths were not due to water pollution, but because they were hit by mechanised boats or got caught in trawler nets.
Experts suggest there are other factors like the likelihood of the oxygen levels in water depleting and the soil being polluted, ghost nets from fishing boats and the ingesting plastic in deep sea, which can’t be ruled out.
