Amazing! Turtle reached Maharashtra from Odisha via Sri Lanka after swimming 4500 KM for breeding

New Delhi: Earlier this year, a team from Maharashtra Forest Department found a lone turtle nesting on Guhagar beach in Ratnagiri. On closer examination, they found two shiny metal tags on both its front flippers. This Olive Ridley turtle was identified as 03233 and a story came to light.

Turtle’s 4500 km long journey
The researchers found that the turtle had made a long and difficult journey of about 4500 km. Starting from Gahirmatha in Odisha, turning around Sri Lanka downwards along the eastern coast, going north to Jaffna, turning back to Thiruvananthapuram and then moving up along the western coast and finally reaching the coast of Ratnagiri.

Turtle nest and 125 eggs
The turtle nested on the white sand beach of Guhagar and laid 125 eggs, of which at least 107 eggs have hatched. The flipper tag had the number 03233, which was tagged by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) on March 18, 2021 at the Gahirmatha Marine Wildlife Sanctuary in Odisha.

This was seen for the first time
The turtle was one of the 12000 Olive Ridley turtles that were tagged on flippers that year to help track their migration patterns and feeding areas. Dr Suresh Kumar, senior scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), said that I never thought that the turtle could come from the east coast to the west coast. While this may not be a rare phenomenon, this is probably the first recorded incident in which a turtle tagged on the east coast has been found on the west coast.

We did not know that such migration was possible in this species. Dr Suresh Kumar said that the turtle took a 4500 km route around Sri Lanka, which is a known feeding area for Olive Ridley turtles. It is possible that it took an alternate shorter route through the Pamban corridor that connects Rameswaram Island to the Tamil Nadu mainland.

Not just the eastern, the western coasts also need to be protected
Turtle 03233 was tagged by Dr Basudev Tripathi of ZSI. He says that its discovery off the coast of Ratnagiri in Maharashtra sheds new light on the nesting pattern of Olive Ridley turtles. Turtles exhibit a unique synchronized mass nesting behavior. This is called Arribada, in which thousands of female turtles gather on beaches to lay eggs.

Olive Ridleys will come to the coast of Odisha from eastern Sri Lanka. Will stay for six months and go back after mass nesting. This particular turtle nested on the coast of Ratnagiri, which shows that not all Olive Ridleys come to Odisha or the eastern coast for mass nesting. Some travel to the western coasts. This means we have to protect not only the eastern coasts, but also the western coasts.