how have olive ridleys stuck to their timetable
Answers
Answer:
The turtles, he said, have stuck to their time-table and arrived at the Orissa coast in the last week of October.
Explanation:
Bhubaneswar, March 14: Thousands of Olive Ridley sea turtles have kept their tryst with the Orissa coast by turning up in thousands at the Rushikulya beach for their yearly nesting.
A moonlit Wednesday night lured the turtles out of the the waters of Bay of Bengal. Before the day broke, more than 21,000 female gravid Olive Ridleys had clambered up to lay eggs on the sandy beaches, warming the cockles of many an environmentalist’s heart.
“The turtles seem to have stuck to their timetable even though their exact nesting site has shifted,” said Biswajit Mohanty, state co-ordinator of Operation Kachhapa, a turtle conservation organisation. There are three mass nesting sites for the turtles in Orissa — Nasi Islands in Gahirmatha, the mouth of the Devi river and Rushikulya beach. According to an estimate of the forest department, 2,08,000 turtles had laid eggs on the beaches last year.
On March 3 this year, thousands of endangered Olive Ridleys laid eggs at the Nasi Islands.
Although it is the largest nesting ground in the world for Olive Ridleys, the island had seen no congregation of turtles for the past two years.
Mohanty, however, fears that the amphibians might not turn up at the Devi river mouth. “There is little chance of mass nesting at the Devi mouth as large-scale mechanised fishing is going on in the area, disturbing the breeding Ridleys,” he said.
The Ridleys reach the Orissa coast during September-October every year and stay till May before departing for their habitats in the deeper offshore waters near Sri Lanka.
The eggs hatch after 45 to 55 days, after which the baby turtles are released into the Bay of Bengal.
An Olive Ridley turtle, on an average, lays about 120 to 150 eggs. Studies indicate that only one out of every 1,000 eggs ultimately hatches and the baby turtle survives to become an adult Olive Ridley sea turtle.
Ever since the turtles were listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, there has been a decline in their numbers, environmentalists say.
Olive Ridley turtles are also protected under Schedule I to the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and trapping or killing them is a punishable offence with a jail term of up to six years
Environmentalists blame the erratic nesting habits of the turtles to high-trawling activities near the shore and distractions like strong lights near the nesting beach.