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The ebb and flow of life
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The massive destruction of the Olive Ridley turtle, if not stopped, may see the extinction of this species. S. THEODORE BASKARAN highlights what is happening now.
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The Olive Ridley ... a perilous journey back to the sea.
WALKING along the water's edge on Tiruvanmiyur beach, Chennai, on a January morning, we saw an Olive Ridley turtle in the throes of death, washed ashore. A closer look revealed that the rudder of a trawler had probably mutilated its back flippers and it was bleeding profusely. The trawler is just one of the causes that has pushed this creature to the brink of extinction.
Local fishermen know the Ridley as Panguni aamai; it comes ashore to lay eggs in the Tamil month of Panguni (January-February). Year after year, it arrives at the same nesting area, where it often meets its end. The female digs a pit in the sand with her back flippers and lays about 50 to 100 eggs. After 40 to 50 days, they hatch. The hatchlings instinctively head towards the sea and find their way to the depths of the ocean. The adults nest in large numbers. The largest nesting population of these turtles arrive in Orissa where, at Gahirmatha, over 2,00,000 have been counted in one season.
Of the five species of sea turtles that visit the coastline for nesting, the Ridley has been the most exploited. Traditionally, it has been hunted and its eggs robbed for the table. During the Raj, this species and its eggs were considered a delicacy (see The Raj at Table by David Burton, 1993). As recently as the late 1960s, vendors hawked turtle eggs in the streets of Chennai. Even now along the East Coast Highway, you come across the locals offering eggs for sale.
The surge of enthusiasm for wildlife conservation that swept our country in the early 1970s brought the plight of the turtles into focus. In the 1970s, Romulus Whitaker, who was managing the Madras Snake Park then, was living by the sea and observed the decimation of these reptiles. Along with Satish Bhaskar and Jean Delouche, he initiated steps to save the species. With volunteers like Anne Joseph and Preston Ahimaz, both from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), he organised what came to be known as the "turtle walk".
During the nesting season, volunteers walked along the beach at night and collected the eggs covering the nesting area from the Marina Beach to Kalpakkam. According to their estimates, about 14,000 turtles came to nest. Whitaker and his team persuaded the National and Grindlays Bank to provide space at Injambakkam village, where a makeshift hatchery was set up and the eggs were buried under the sand, to hatch. In 1982, the WWF, Tamil Nadu, took charge and continued the hatchery programme. Soon the Forest Department stepped in and set up three more hatcheries.
Whitaker demonstrated what could be done with very little resources and a strong belief in a cause: later, he was to prove the same point in the case of crocodiles. The "turtle walks", still carried on by the Students Sea Turtle Conservation Network, in addition to helping the turtles, continue to win new converts to the cause of conservation.
However, there is a hitch. Biologist Jack Frazier pointed out that the temperature around the eggs during the incubation is critical in sex determination. The implication of this finding is immense. It is possible that, with all good intentions, we might be releasing hundreds of hatchlings, of the same sex, into the sea. Whitaker says that we now have the equipment to control the temperature so precisely that we could even determine the sexes accurately. If in a lot of 100 eggs, you want 30 females and 70 males, you could do that.
The Protection of Wildlife Act of 1972 listed the Ridley as endangered. But it is one thing to provide legal protection and another to enforce it. The nesting turtles have to contend against many threats. On the Orissa coast, the turtles often get entangled in trawler nets and die. Some State Governments, such as Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, have enforced the use of Turtle Excluder Device (TED) in trawlers. This one-way flap in the net lets the turtle out and protects it from drowning. This step is yet to be implemented by Tamil Nadu.
When the turtles come ashore in thousands, they are vulnerable and can be easily caught. The belief that the blood of the Ridley has medicinal properties has led to a lot of poaching along the shores. As the nesting turtles leave a clear track in the sand, it is easy to locate and get at the eggs. Stray dogs sniff out the nests and eat the eggs. In the sea also it is difficult to protect the turtles as they roam the high seas. The "freedom of the seas" policy complicates the matter further. Giant hi-tech fishing vessels kill a large number of turtles. As chemicals are dumped into the sea and oil spills occur, the turtles are fighting a losing battle.
However, one point is clear. Massive destruction of breeding adults, as is happening now is altering the situation, even if there is a larger population. Just as we have eliminated many creatures from the face of the earth, we could wipe out some creatures of the ocean also. It is already happening in the case of whales.
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