Olive Ridleys

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21-Mar-2020: Mass nesting of olive Ridleys begins at Rushikulya

Mass nesting of olive Ridleys has started at Odisha’s Rushikulya rookery coast.

Olive Ridley turtles are among the smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles found in the world. They are found in warm and tropical waters, primarily in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, but also in the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean. They are predominantly omnivorous.

Olive Ridley turtles and the related Kemps Ridley turtles are best known for their behavior of synchronized nesting in mass numbers, termed arribadas.  Gahirmatha marine sanctuary and Rushikulya rookery coast in Ganjam district are the main Olive Ridley Nesting sites in Odisha.

Recently, another Olive Ridley mass nesting site has been added. This is the Bahuda Rookery at a beach on Bahuda river mouth in Ganjam district.

Conservation Status: It is listed as vulnerable under the IUCN Red List. In India, it is protected under Schedule I of Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Trading in its products is banned under CITES. The Coast Guard had launched ‘Operation Olivia’ to intercept unlawful trawling activities along Odisha coast to ensure safe passage to the Olive Ridley turtles during the nesting season.

21-Apr-2019: Over one lakh Olive Ridley turtles enter sea in Odisha

The idyllic Kalam Island off the Odisha coast has become lively with lakhs of baby Olive Ridley turtles crawling towards the Bay of Bengal after emerging from eggshells. The Odisha Forest and Environment Department said baby turtles had emerged from approximately 1.25 lakh nests.

The process is supposed to continue for another two days as 4.5 lakh turtles had arrived at beaches under Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary to lay eggs this year. Millions of baby turtles would make their way into the sea in the next two days.

The unmanned island, located close to the Wheeler’s Island defence test range centre, a prohibited territory, is one of the largest rookeries in the world. Except forest department officials, no one has had the chance to witness the spectacular sight. After breaking the eggshells, the baby turtles crawled seawards almost immediately without their mothers. Eggs laid by turtles in March were incubated under natural process.

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21-Mar-2020: Mass nesting of olive Ridleys begins at Rushikulya

Mass nesting of olive Ridleys has started at Odisha’s Rushikulya rookery coast.

Olive Ridley turtles are among the smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles found in the world. They are found in warm and tropical waters, primarily in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, but also in the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean. They are predominantly omnivorous.

Olive Ridley turtles and the related Kemps Ridley turtles are best known for their behavior of synchronized nesting in mass numbers, termed arribadas.  Gahirmatha marine sanctuary and Rushikulya rookery coast in Ganjam district are the main Olive Ridley Nesting sites in Odisha.

Recently, another Olive Ridley mass nesting site has been added. This is the Bahuda Rookery at a beach on Bahuda river mouth in Ganjam district.

Conservation Status: It is listed as vulnerable under the IUCN Red List. In India, it is protected under Schedule I of Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Trading in its products is banned under CITES. The Coast Guard had launched ‘Operation Olivia’ to intercept unlawful trawling activities along Odisha coast to ensure safe passage to the Olive Ridley turtles during the nesting season.

21-Apr-2019: Over one lakh Olive Ridley turtles enter sea in Odisha

The idyllic Kalam Island off the Odisha coast has become lively with lakhs of baby Olive Ridley turtles crawling towards the Bay of Bengal after emerging from eggshells. The Odisha Forest and Environment Department said baby turtles had emerged from approximately 1.25 lakh nests.

The process is supposed to continue for another two days as 4.5 lakh turtles had arrived at beaches under Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary to lay eggs this year. Millions of baby turtles would make their way into the sea in the next two days.

The unmanned island, located close to the Wheeler’s Island defence test range centre, a prohibited territory, is one of the largest rookeries in the world. Except forest department officials, no one has had the chance to witness the spectacular sight. After breaking the eggshells, the baby turtles crawled seawards almost immediately without their mothers. Eggs laid by turtles in March were incubated under natural process.

2018

28-Dec-2018: Bahuda Rookery: Another Olive Ridley Nesting Site in Odisha

The Forest Department of Odisha is all set to start a new Olive Ridley mass nesting site at Bahuda River mouth in Ganjam district of Odisha to lure Olive Ridley turtles to come over for mass nesting in 2019.

  1. A few hundred of endangered Olive Ridley turtles had nested at Bahuda River mouth coast in 2018.
  2. The new nesting point which is located around 20 km to south of Rushikulya rookery coast, stretches for around 3 km from Sunapur to Anantapur beach area.
  3. Gahirmatha marine sanctuary and Rushikulya rookery coast in Ganjam district of Odisha are main Olive Ridley Nesting site in Odisha.
  4. Odisha is home to about 50% of the world’s total population of Olive Ridley turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) which are included in vulnerable category by the IUCN Red list and are protected under Schedule I of Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 in India.
  5. Trading of the products manufactured from these turtles are also banned under Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

2017

4-Mar-2017: Olive Ridleys' eggs destroyed due to shrinking coastal space.

Tens of thousands of eggs laid by Olive Ridley sea turtles in Gahirmatha Sanctuary(one of the world’s largest nesting grounds) in Odisha, are getting destroyed due to shrinking coastal space.

The ongoing mass nesting of the ridleys has enthused conservationists, but habitat decline is undoing the gains. Since the small island could not host all those that turned up this year, only 50% of eggs may survive.

A female sea turtle scoops beach sand out to lay 80 to 120 eggs, but its effort is undone when a second digs at the same place to lay its own. This season, turtles are estimated to have laid close to 60 million eggs along a 1,000-metre beach of Nasi II.

Wildlife staff have observed mass nesting for a month. Since only 1,000 metres is now suitable at Nasi II, there is not enough space. Of 100 turtles, eggs of only 50 survive.

Two bigger beaches with 200 hectares and 50 hectares at Ekakula Nasi and Nasi I island drew a mere 12 and 100 Olive Ridleys respectively.

Gahirmatha once had 32 km of beach and nesting area of 1,80,000 square metres. Research by B.C. Choudhury, former scientist, Wildlife Institute of India, showed that Nasi I and Nasi II had fragmented.

In the Visakhapatnam region, the Forest Department recorded 447 nests with 47,000 eggs, the highest so far.

24-Feb-2017: Mass nesting by Olive Ridleys in Odisha coast

A record-breaking mass nesting by 3.8 lakh endangered olive ridley turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) took place at the Rushikulya rookery coast in Ganjam district of Odisha. Interestingly, no mass nesting had taken place at the site a year ago.

It was then suspected that several environmental factors, including chemical factors like salinity of the beach and the sea near the coast, may have prompted these marine reptiles to give the coast a miss in 2016.

According to experts, most mass nesting sites of olive ridley turtles in the world are located near river mouths, where salinity is low. However, a lot still needs to be explored with regard to the influence of the salinity factor as not much is known about the relation between mass nesting by these endangered turtles and coastline salinity.

This behaviour, however, has prompted experts to study turtle sensing superpowers. A sandbar emerged at the mouth of Rushikulya river near Purunabandha this year which prevented fresh water from the river from entering the sea directly. So the fresh water started flowing northward. This must’ve decreased the salinity of sea water near the coast towards north of the river mouth. Usually, mass nesting takes place between Gokharkuda and new Podampeta, where the effect of fresh river water diverted by the sandbar may be high.

Low salinity also means more small fish and insects, which are food for the turtles near the coast during mating and mass nesting seasons. The corrosive effect of salinity on eggshells cannot be ignored either.

Olive ridley turtles bury their eggs on the beach. These eggs incubate with the help of sand heat for 45 to 50 days. High sand salinity may damage eggshells, while low salinity will minimise the corrosive effect. It’s possible the Olive Ridleys took the salinity factor into account while nesting at Rushikulya rookery coast this year, but what remains unanswered is how they sensed it.

Several mysteries related to the life, migration and mass nesting of olive ridleys are yet to be unravelled. A proper study of sea salinity levels near the coast in relation to the extent of mass nesting during past years will have to be taken up to understand the relation between salinity and nesting behaviour.