Berhampur: Wildlife scientists are excited as 47 female Olive Ridley turtles which were tagged by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), three years ago, have returned to the beach near the Rushikulya river mouth in Ganjam district to lay eggs along with several others in last four days.Over 2.5 lakh Olive Ridley turtles have nested in the rookery in the ongoing mass nesting period till Wednesday morning, said Sunny Khokkar, divisional forest officer (DFO), Berhampur. Mass nesting of Olive Ridley turtles commenced from Sunday. On Thursday early morning, 52,900 turtles laid eggs in the rookery.“Out of these we have detected 47 female turtles who returned to the state coast for nesting this time,” said Anil Mohapatra, a senior scientist and officer-in-charge of Estuarine Biology Research Center (EBRC), a regional centre of ZSI, Gopalpur.Last year, they detected around 400 tagged turtles during mass nesting period at the Rushikulya river beach. These turtles were tagged in the Rushikulya rookery in 2021-23 by the ZSI under the tagging of the Olive Ridley turtles programme carried out jointly by the ZSI and forest department to track their movement in the sea, he said.“The non-corrosive metal tag, which will not harm the turtle, was attached to the marine species. It is uniquely numbered and has details such as name of the organisation, email etc,” he said. During the period, ZSI scientists tagged around 12,000 turtles at the Rushikulya and Gahirmatha rookeries. Mohapatra said they have collected the photos of the tags to conduct a detailed study after completing the mass nesting process in the rookery.Diby Shankar Behera, assistant conservator of forests (ACF), Khallikote, said they have taken all precautionary measures to protect the eggs after the nesting by engaging the local volunteers. Entry to the area was restricted for smooth nesting of the Olive Ridley turtles, classified as “vulnerable” on the IUCN Red list, he said. After nesting on the beach by digging pits the female turtles return to the sea.
