Naga tribal youths helps efforts to revive critically endangered Asian giant tortoise in the wild

Guwahati: Young Iteichube have seen the Asian Giant Tortoises being killed for consumption and sold in markets in Nagaland. Large in size and slow in movement makes it vulnerable to poaching by local tribes or becoming victims of jhum, a process in which jungles are slashed and burned for cultivation on the hills of Northeast.

On Saturday, Iteichube, a youth belonging to Zeliang, one of the major Naga tribes, joined efforts by the state forest department and Turtle Survival Alliance India to revive the population of Asian Giant Tortoise, a critically endangered species, in the wild in Nagaland. Local Naga youths like Iteichube have been engaged as "tortoise guardians" to protect the species, spread awareness among the communities to check poaching and encourage them to join in its conservation.

Captive breeding:

As part of the project, 10 captive-raised tortoises were reintroduced in a community reserve in Peren district under Indian Turtle Conservation Programme (ITCP).

"The tortoises were bred and head started from a conservation colony at Nagaland Zoological Park, which has India's largest captive population of the species", said C. Zupeni Tsanglai, the director of Nagaland Zoological Park. The project aims to save the species from extinction through conservation breeding and reintroduction, backed by efforts to increase the awareness of local communities to protect them in their native habitats.

"The local youths are being trained as parabiologists by the project team. They will help in patrolling the release site, data collection, monitoring and tracking and raising awareness among communities to join in the future conservation endeavours," said Sushmita Kar, project coordinator of ITCP.

The Asian Giant Tortoises, which weigh up to 36kgs, are endemic to the Southeast Asian nations and are very rare in the Northeastern region, mainly due to poaching by local communities and habitat loss. "We fear that less than 500 adult wild individuals are surviving in the entire region now," Kar said.

Importance to biodiversity:

Shailendra Singh of the ITCP said the Asian Giant Tortoises, also called as the small elephants of the forests, help in seed dispersal and forest regeneration apart from scavenging to keep the forest floor clean.

“The released tortoises are marked and tagged with a VHF based telemetry system to study their dispersal and survival in deep rainforests. Once the pilot release is successful, more individuals will be released in this landscape to recover the decimated wild populations,” Kar said.

Photo: 1. Sushmita Kar with two "Tortoise Guardians."

2. Captive-reared Asian Giant tortoises.