oliveridley

  OLIVE RIDLEY

Introduction:

                               Any day in November if one could have the patience to stand on the beach at the Coramandel Coast by late night ,one would see hordes(groups) of  turtles moving towards the sandy beach .They would resemble the cobble stones in  a street. The whole night they would advance and retreat (coming and going back).Heaving and huffing (doing something extreme) these female turtles plow the sand with their noses onto the shore .  They come to the shore to lay eggs.

 Olive Ridley

 Olive ridley is one among the eight species

Of  turtles ,  probably  the smallest .they are found in the high seas in the tropics of the Pacific , Atlantic and  Indian oceans .Based on the number of females nesting annually , the olive ridley  is the most abundant .The best to estimate the size of sea turtle population is to keep an  account of female turtle   nesting annually .The mass nesting  pattern   of  the ridleys make them  vulnerable. All sea turtles come to the shore top lay eggs, but for most ,it is a relatively solitary affair .Olive ridley  and its  Atlantic cousin kemps ridley ,stage la arribada,  which means arrival . They always arrive in huge numbers to nest on the shore.

Built Nest:

The female Ridleys pour out from

The sea and find a place for themselves to nest on the shore .They use their flipper to hollow their nests in the sand .The nest looks like a pot . It is narrow in the mouth and wide at the bottom .Once the nest is dug out the turtle positions itself comfortably and begins to lay eggs .Olive Ridley nest two to three times in the nesting season .Each nest contain about 110 eggs. Nesting, which always occurs at night, takes between 45 minutes to an hour, after which the female Ridleys return to the ocean. Before leaving they cover the nests with sand.

Incubation:

                 The incubation takes about 55 days and the young hatchling emerge from the nest. The hatchlings measure 1.5 inches long and weigh less than 30 gm .An adult Olive Ridley measure 30” in length and weighs nearly 45 kilograms.

About Olive Ridley

                Olive ridleys eat an enormous range of marine organisms .They are omnivorous .They feed in water up to 500 feet deep .They have powerful jaws .The young hatchling have heart shaped shells ,which start out grey but reach an olive green once the turtles are adults .They are migrating ,often traveling thousands of kilometers  between feeding  and nesting grounds .Despite a wide  distribution , they have been observed around continents and large islands, where they sometimes occurs in large flotillas .

 Life Span:

      Olive ridley are listed as endangered species .They have less than one percent chance of living to maturity .their life span is believed to be between 50 and 60 years . olive ridley suffer high mortality rate due to various reasons .The first reason is that not all the eggs that are nested are hatched .Nearly one fifth of the eggs get destroyed  and the fungus and fly larvae destroy more eggs .Most of the times the poachers  collect the eggs  before they hatch  as it is believed that turtle eggs have medicinal powers . Once they come out the young hatchlings are killed by birds, crabs and small mammals on land. The hatchling goes towards the sea attached by the starlight that is reflected by sea waves. Due to increase in urbanization on the sea coast, they are attracted more towards street lights and get crushed when they get onto the road. Once the hatchling go into sea they face treat from sharks, gillnets and shrimptraws. They are ground up by dredges, run over by pleasure boats, poisoned by pollution, strangled by trash and drowned by fish line and net.

Conservation:

                                      The conservation of sea turtles was seriously taken up only in 1954 by late Archie Carr in cost Rica , who set up the largest green turtle rookery in the Caribbean. What that one man has started, almost half a century ago has grown into an international army of biologists and volunteers, trying to understand the ways of sea turtles to save them from extinction. The turtles have been elusive creatures right from the beginning. Another herpetologist remarked, “I don’t know any branch of science where we have applied so much effort and learned so little’. Costa Rica outlawed the poaching of eggs in 1966. It was found that Mexico alone killed 75,000 olive ridleys annually mainly for their leather, until the killing was banned in 1990. At present 115 Countries have banned import or export of sea turtle products.

Places of Olive ridley  

                                    The single most important breeding area of Olive ridley in the Indian Ocean along the Bay of Bengal in Orissa. It was in 1993 the Biologists learned that large scale nesting of Olive ridley was taking place near the mouth of RushikulyaRiver in Orissa. This area is the location of one of the largest ‘arribada’ sites of Olive ridley in India. The peculiarity in India is that most fishing communities along the coast do not consume turtle eggs or meat, as Hindus worship sea turtles as an incarnation of one of their gods. Poachers of sea turtles are mostly from the non- fishing community.

Awareness:

                           Creating awareness among people and conservation of Olive ridley was taken up in Tamil Nadu during 1986. A group of College students established the sea turtle conservation network on the coast of Bay of Bengal near Chennai, which has been functioning effectively with the support of the Government, NGOs and mainly with the few student groups. Often ‘turtle walk’  are arranged during November –February. The participants of ‘turtle walk’ are taken on a walk of about 6 kms on the coast led by volunteers who identifies the nest. The eggs which look like soft ping-pong balls are collected and taken to the sanctuary where they are put in the nests resembling a pot. The work goes on during November and December. In January and February the young hatchlings come out at midnight. They are collected with great care.