At least 48 olive Rayli turtles were labeled as metal foot fins by the Animal Investigation India (ZSI) during the 2021-23 period on the coast of Odisha, returning to the Rushikulya River in Ganjam district, where eggs were sent over the past three days, officials said Tuesday.
ZSI, in partnership with the Odisha Forest Department, began tagging the olive Raylei turtles on the state coast in January 2021 to study the movement of marine species. They said that the second phase of mass nesting at Rushikulya Rookery began on Saturday with a total of 1,30,031 turtles laying eggs in the past three days.
Despite the rain, turtles continued to lay eggs on the 5km long beach from Purunabandh to Bateswar, officials said. Diba Shankar Behera, forest assistant protector, said 41,731 sea turtles lay eggs in the estuary on Monday.
“Over the past three days, we have found about 48 marked female turtles, this time in the second phase of the mass nesting period, back to Rushikulya Rookery.”
He said we expect their number to increase at the end of large-scale nesting. During the first phase of mass nesting, held from February 16 to 23, authorities found 382 turtles with metal labels on them. A record 6,98,718 olive Ridley turtles lay eggs on the beach in the first phase.
Mohapatra said that during the 2021-23 period, they tagged about 12,000 turtles on Rushikulya rookie and Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary, and he said we have collected photos of turtles with metal tags. He said we will complete a detailed study of the label after large-scale nesting.
He added that in 2023, authorities found more than 100 marked sea turtles at the mouth of Rushikulya. Basudev Tripathy, another senior scientist at ZSI, said the government needs to do a few more years of label practice to study the movement and other aspects of marine species.
