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WII to conduct a study on Olive Ridley turtles and their movement
About Olive Ridley turtles
- The name for this sea turtle is tied to the colour of its shell—an olive green hue.
- The Olive ridley turtles are the most abundant of all sea turtles found in the world,
- Habitat: They inhabit warm waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.
- These turtles, along with their cousin the Kemp’s ridley turtle, are best known for their unique mass nesting called Arribada, where thousands of females come together on the same beach to lay eggs.
- These turtles spend their entire lives in the ocean and migrate thousands of kilometres between feeding and mating grounds in the course of a year.
- Though international trade in these turtles and their products is banned under CITES Appendix I, they are still extensively poached for their meat, shell and leather, and their eggs, though illegal to harvest, have a significantly large market around the coastal regions.
- The most severe threat they face is the accidental killing of adult turtles through entanglement in trawl nets and gill nets due to uncontrolled fishing during their mating season around nesting beaches.
- To reduce the accidental killing in India, the Odisha government has made it mandatory for trawls to use Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs).
- Rushikulya rookery coast in the Ganjam district of Odisha, Gahirmatha beach (Bhitarkanika National park) and the mouth of the Debi River are the major nesting sites in Odisha.
- IUCN status: Vulnerable
Source: The Hindu & WWF
