Olive Ridley Turtle Nest Spotted At Tarkarli Beach

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In a pleasant surprise for marine conservationists as well as the state forest department, Tarkarli beach, famous for water adventure sports, has recorded an Olive Ridley Turtle nest for the first time. At another 2-km distance, at Devbag beach, one more nest was found after almost six years.

Nesting of the turtle

Olive Ridley is considered the most abundant sea turtle in the world, with sporadic nesting in Maharashtra, Goa, and the offshore Andaman Islands.
In Maharashtra, nesting is recorded across three districts in the southernmost region of the state— Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg.
They are known for their unique mass nesting called Arribada, where thousands of females come together on the same beach to lay eggs.
These are carnivores and feed mainly on jellyfish, shrimp etc.
The eggs hatch in 45 to 60 days, depending on the temperature of the sand and atmosphere during the incubation period.
The highest number of nests and hatchlings are recorded in three beaches in Ratnagiri — Guhagar, Velas and Anjarle.

These beaches also hold an annual Turtle festival in March— a potential hatchling period for the Olive Ridley turtles, when juvenile turtles break the eggshell and crawl to the sea.
Both Tarkarli and Devbag (which is an extension of Tarkarli) record high footfall. The nest at Tarkarli is the first occurrence. The nest at Devbag is rare as records show us nesting only in 2014 and 2015.
Covid-19 induced lockdown and restrictions could also be playing a part in this
First Mass Nesting of these turtles was discovered in 1974. It was Gahirmatha rookery close to the mouth of Brahmani-Baitarani (Dhamra) River.
A second mass nesting was discovered in 1981 at the Devi River mouth.
The third mass nesting area was discovered at the Rushikulya river mouth in 1994.
Experts attribute the first-time sighting of nests at beaches to reduced tourist interference in the area.
Over the years, many awareness sessions are held among locals about the nesting period and how to handle the nests and eggs besides involving community members as volunteer.
One of the positive impacts of the efforts is that people now inform as they spot nests and even turtle tracks.
As part of the conservation programme, beach managers are hired from November to May by the forest department to survey the nesting sites, relocate the eggs, if required, to a hatchery and ensure that the hatchlings reach the sea safely.
With the conservation efforts, the hatchling success rate has increased. In 2020-21, the hatchling success rate was 46.66 per cent, a slight increase from 44.4 per cent the previous year.
In 2018-19, the hatchling success rate was higher, at 54.47 per cent. Hatchling success is the ratio of the number of eggs laid to the number of turtles surviving the nesting period.

mTurtle App

SNM along with the forest department have developed an application called mTurtle wherein the turtle nest managers appointed by the Forest Department at various nesting zones can directly update data such as the number of eggs laid, sea turtles and hatchlings.
The data is stored in cloud space accessible to the Forest Department.
With the launch of the mobile application to collect real-time nesting data, the hatchling success rate will further improve.
Scientific name: Lepidochelys olivacea; also known as the Pacific ridley sea turtle.

Conservation Status

IUCN Red List: Vulnerable
Schedule I of Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972
CITES Appendix I

Threats

Marine pollution and waste.
Human Consumption: They are extensively poached for their meat, shell and leather, and eggs.
Plastic Garbage: An ever-increasing debris of plastics, fishing nets, discarded nets, polythene and other garbage dumped by tourists and fishing workers.
Fishing Trawlers: Overexploitation of marine resources by use of trawlers often violates the rule to not fish 20 kilometers within a marine sanctuary.
There were injury marks on many dead turtles indicating they could have been trapped under trawls or gill nets.

KURMA App

The KURMA App has a built-in digital field guide covering 29 species of freshwater turtles and tortoise of India, and information on turtle identification, distribution, vernacular names, and threats.
It is developed by the Indian Turtle Conservation Action Network (ITCAN) in collaboration with the Turtle Survival Alliance-India and Wildlife Conservation Society-India. It provides users a database to identify a species.