48 Olive Ridley turtles with metallic tags return to Odisha coast for mass nesting

Berhampur, Odisha: At least 48 Olive Ridley turtles, which were tagged with metallic flipper by the Zoological Survey India (ZSI) during the 2021-23 period on the Odisha coast, returned to the Rushikulya river in Ganjam district to lay eggs in the last three days, officials said on Tuesday.

The ZSI, in collaboration with the Odisha Forest Department, had started to tag Olive Ridley turtles on the state coast in January 2021 to study the movements of the marine species.

The second phase of the mass nesting in the Rushikulya rookery started on Saturday and a total of 1,30,031 turtles have laid eggs in the last three days, they said.

Despite rain, the turtles continued to lay eggs on the 5-km-long beach from Purunabandh to Bateswar, the officials said.

On Monday, 41,731 turtles laid eggs in the river mouth, Diba Shankar Behera, assistant conservator of forest (ACF), said.

"In the last three days, we have detected around 48 tagged female turtles which return to the Rushikulya rookery in their second phase of mass nesting period this time," said Anil Mohapatra, a senior scientist and officer-in-charge of Estuarine Biology Research Center (EBRC), Regional Center of ZSI, Gopalpur.

“We are expecting their number might increase at the end of the mass nesting,” he said.

In the first phase of their mass nesting, which took place from February 16 to 23, the authorities concerned had spotted 382 turtles with metallic tags.

A record number of 6,98,718 Olive Ridley turtles had laid eggs on the beach in the first phase.

Mohapatra said they had tagged around 12,000 turtles at the Rushikulya rookery and Gahirmatha marine sanctuary during the 2021-23 period, he said “We have collected photographs of turtles with metallic tags. We will conduct detailed studies on the tags after the completion of mass nesting,” he said.

In 2023, the authorities had spotted over 100 tagged turtles in the Rushikulya river mouth, he added.

Basudev Tripathy, another senior scientist of ZSI, said the government needs to carry out the tagging exercise for a few more years to study movements and other aspects of the marine species.