Berhampur: Over 1.8 lakh Olive Ridley turtles laid eggs on the first day of their mass nesting which started near the mouth of Rushikulya river a month ahead of last year’s season, forest officials said Friday.
The mass nesting began Thursday night and continued till Friday morning without a break when the sea turtles laid eggs in the four km stretch of the beach from Posampeta to Bateshwar, Berhampur divisional forest officer Amlan Nayak said.
The mass nesting is likely to take continue for some more days, he said.
Last year a record 5.5 lakh Olive Ridley turtles nested on the beach between March 28 and April 4. “We can’t tell the reason for the early nesting of the turtles this year. It is a natural phenomenon,” Nayak said.
Wildlife experts attributed suitable climatic conditions and clean beaches as reasons for the early mass nesting in the area.
Anjan Prusty, professor of environmental science at Berhampur University, said climate change might be the cause of the early nesting of the turtles this year.
The DFO said, “We have divided the beach into 50 sectors and engaged over 200 forest staff and volunteers to protect the eggs. The entire site was fenced to prevent the entry of wild dogs, jackals and other predators”.
Forest officials cleaned the beach before the mass nesting, he added.
Meanwhile, scientists of Zoological Survey of India have detected this time at least 17 adult female turtles they had tagged in the last two years.
“The process of detection of tagged turtles and tagging of turtles is going on,” said Anil Mohapatra, senior scientist and officer-in-charge of Estuarine Biology Research Center (EBRC), ZSI regional centre at Gopalpur.
On the first day, 1150 turtles were tagged. Around 8500 turtles were tagged to study their routes of nesting and other activists, he said.
Last year, around a dozen tagged turtles, were detected on the beach in the mouth of Rushikulya, Mohapatra added.
PTI