Bhubaneswar: During an extraordinary journey across the Indian coastline, the olive Ridley turtle equipped with satellite tracking devices on the Gahirmatha beach in Odisha has traveled nearly 1,000 kilometers in just 51 days and finally reached the coast of Andhra Pradesh.
According to forest officials, the tortoise passed through the coastal waters of Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu and Puducher before reaching its current location. The campaign is confirmed by the latest tracking data from the Wildlife Research Institute of India (WII).
Prem Shankar Jha, Chief Chief Forest (PCCF) of Odisha, informed, “The last time marked as a tortoise on the Andhra Pradesh coast is located on the Andhra Pradesh coast.”
This is not the first instance of such a great Odyssey. Officials recall a tortoise marked in Odisha four years ago, which had nested more than 3,500 kilometers on the beach in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra.
Every year, millions of olive Raylei turtles arrive on the coast of Odisha for large-scale nesting, and Gahirmatha Beach in the Kendrapara region is known as the world’s largest rookie of this fragile marine species. Turtles also gather in large quantities at the Rushikulya estuary in Ganjam district and the Devi estuary in Puri district.
To better understand its migration patterns and reproductive behaviors, tracking equipment markers are marked for approximately 3,000 tortoises each year. However, experts believe that marking at least one hundred thousand sea turtles is crucial to obtain comprehensive insights into their biology, growth rates, foraging areas and migration routes.
The Odisha Forest Ministry initially launched the Turtle Tag Program in 1999. In the early days, two label turtles from Odisha were tracked to the coast of Sri Lanka. However, the initiative was later suspended and could not be restored until the 2021 Zoological Survey of India (ZSI).
Since then, between 2021 and 2024, approximately 12,000 Olive Ridley Turtles have been marked on the nesting grounds of Gahirmatha and Rushikulya, providing valuable data to help the conservation efforts of the species.
