Editorial: Turn turtle

• Over the past two decades, a crew of intrepid conservationists, volunteers and the occasional journalist, would embark upon a nocturnal walk during this season, traversing a stretch of Chennai’s coastline, like Neelankarai to Besant Nagar, in search of Olive Ridley sea turtle nests. The Olive Ridley turtles arrive near the Tamil Nadu coast during the months of September-October to breed. The nesting season kicks off in November and ends in March. In a good season, the nests would brim with freshly-laid turtle eggs that would be collected and relocated to a hatchery operated by the Forest Department. Almost 45-60 days later, when the hatchlings emerge, they are released into the sea. This time around, the volunteers aren’t as optimistic, as for the first time in 25 years, the state has recorded a sharp plunge in sea turtle nests along the coast, which has alarmed wildlife authorities and ecologists.

Just about 343 nests were located across the state during this season, which is the lowest in Tamil Nadu’s recorded history. Compare this to the numbers from 2022-23, when 430 nests were identified, from 2021-22 when 490 nests were located, and from 2020-21 when 387 nests were found. Officials have reported that between the Pulicat and Kovalam stretch, just about 31 nests were identified since the nesting season began this month, and it yielded 2,778 eggs. For comparison, in 2021-22, a total of 55,713 eggs were picked up of which 46,755 hatched. A year later, 42,650 eggs were collected, of which only 5,300 hatched.

The plummeting number of nests has been attributed to human induced threats, including squid nets, and large deep sea fishing nets, some weighing in excess of 10 tonnes which entangle the turtles, as bycatch, and in turn suffocate and kill them. Apart from this, there are also trawlers, gill boats and deep sea fishing vessels that operate in close proximity to the city’s coastline (within five nautical miles or 9 km), which poses a serious hazard to the sea turtles. The question of the survival of this endangered species looms large as over 1,000 dead Olive Ridley turtles were reported to have been washed ashore on the city’s coast over the past one month (706 per the Forest Department).

In the aftermath of these developments, the NGT Southern Zone recently pulled up the TN government for failing to examine trawlers for compliance with the fitting of relatively inexpensive turtle-excluding devices to be fitted into nets, which would allow incidental bycatch to escape through a flap in the nets. The state was also criticised for the delay in formalising a standard operating procedure or SOP to ensure the safety of the Olive Ridley turtles during its nesting season. A task force led by the Chief Wildlife Warden has suggested a three pronged solution to the problem — a ban on trawl fishing, using the aforementioned turtle excluder devices, and restricting prohibitory horsepower on boat engines. This will be accompanied by stricter penalties for offenders.

Apart from this, the GCC has also taken cognisance of the Forest Department’s directives to protect the turtles, and is set to launch a programme to control the number of stray dogs on beaches during the nesting season. Plans are also being put in place for efficient solid waste disposal near shorelines, and switching off high mast lamps between 11 pm and 5 am to prevent light pollution which affects the nesting turtles. More encouragingly, the department has launched an app called ‘Turtle Walk’ to get near real-time data on the number of nests, eggs and other key parameters.