Seven years ago, at two in the night, my dad and I were
walking along the dark deserted
Most Goans aren't even aware that sea turtles come to nest on our beaches. Dad and I weren't sure ourselves till a few months earlier when we had met Jonny in Morjim. We were returning along the coast road after photographing the beach for some of his environment work, and it suddenly struck him from memories that this beach was also once renowned as a turtle nesting site. We stopped the first lonely youth on the road and he confirmed for us that ‘yes' the turtles were still nesting here. And ‘yes' their eggs were being stolen and eaten hard-boiled at the local bars around.
Then came the crucial question to Jonny: ‘Do you think these turtles should be protected or should we continue eating their eggs?' It was a queer question asked by my dad and Jonny pondered over it for a moment before he said, ‘I think we need to save them.'
That was the beginning of the campaign that is taking place today to save the Olive Ridley turtles that come to nest on several of our beaches – including Morjim, Agonda and Galgibag.
Sea turtles are one of the strange wonders of nature. They are born from eggs laid in the sand. Yet they spend their entire lives swimming in the sea traveling thousands of kilometers from one continent to another. Thirty years from birth they will return as adults to lay a hundred and fifty eggs on the very same beach where they first hatched.
Sea turtles used to originally nest on other beaches like Calangute and Baga but have stopped for sometime now because of all the increased lights and disturbance present there. Even on Galgibag and Morjim their numbers of 20 and 30 a year are almost insignificant when compared with the two lakh that nest yearly on the Gahirmatha beach of Orissa.
The nesting on the Orissa beach is called an ‘Arribada' – Spanish for mass arrival – and takes place between the months of November to May. On full moon nights, female turtles swarm up in thousands over the beach to dig holes in the sand and lay ping pong ball sized eggs in them. Full moon night is chosen as it represents the highest high tide level ensuring for the mother that her eggs will remain safe from soaking on days of other high tides.
Very often the next batch arriving a full moon-cycle later will swarm over the same area, dig up previous nests and lay their own in the mess of broken eggs and egg yolks flying around. The occasion provides a small feast to jackals, dogs, birds, crabs, wild boars, monitor lizards and other animals. Yet the whole procedure ensures that there is no year round steady food supply for predators, and this imbalance keeps their number to a minimum.
A strange feature of turtle eggs is that their sex is influenced by temperatures. For instance temperatures below 28 degree Celsius produce only males, while those above 30 hatch only into females!
Sixty days after they hatch, baby turtles will remain hidden till the cover of darkness, when they scramble out together and make straight for the sea. On the way they are picked up by birds, dogs and crabs and even when they reach the sea, sharks and other fishes will take a heavy toll on their numbers. Yet turtles have successfully survived for millions of years and even out-lived dinosaurs who perished sixty five million years ago. In the end, even if just two of the offspring out of the thousands of eggs laid by the mother make it to maturity, that is adequate to ensure future generations to come.
Today however turtles face extinction at the hands of man. Trawlers are responsible for killing thousands of adult turtles. One must remember that sea turtles are reptiles. And though they can hold their breath for up to half an hour under water they ultimately have to surface to breathe. If they do get entangled in a trawl net, they struggle and drown quickly. Trawlers have killed a staggering 15000 turtles between 1994 and 1998 on the coasts of Orissa alone.
Dumping of pollutants in the seas has been known to cause them lesions and cancers. In addition plastic has become a major problem. Turtles are unable to differentiate between jellyfish and plastic and end up choking when they try to swallow the latter.
Another problem is lighting and noise. Most of our beaches are becoming more and more crowded and noisy these days. Turtles will not tolerate any disturbance on their nesting sites, and should a female chance upon even a flashlight shine while she is climbing on to the beach she will turn and head straight back into the sea.
Lighting can cause problems for hatchlings as well. Baby turtles locate the sea at night by its shiny surface reflecting light from the stars and the moon. This mechanism fails when there are lights on the beach. Hatchlings seeking out the brighter land side are known to crawl in the opposite direction often ending up exhausted and dead on roads and in houses nearby.
At a recently held conference in Dona Paula, Nirmal Kulkarni pointed out a few other problems as well. Helicopters, he explained, have blown away two nests at Morjim by flying too close to the beach. Roland Martins also made a mention of how a batch of nestlings hatched at Galgibag were kept in a bucket right till afternoon, for the sole purpose of enabling a photograph with a minister releasing them. The turtles were apparently totally exhausted and disoriented from swimming circles in the bucket and I can bet that none of them made it more than twenty meters from the shore line.
There are solutions for most of these problems. Turtle deaths in trawler nets can be prevented completely by the simple introduction of TED's (turtle excluder devices) in fishing nets. This device hardly affects the fish catch and allows turtles and other big fish like dolphins to get away unharmed.
At Morjim illegal shacks are coming up as a result of the recent popularity of the beach. More shacks mean more disorienting lights and more stray dogs which will harass every turtle coming up to nest and attack the hatchlings going back to the sea.
There are six varieties of sea turtles in the world. The
biggest is the Leatherback which grows up to 1.5 meters in length and can weigh
up to 800 kgs! The Olive Ridley which nests on our beaches is the smallest of
them all and grows to a size of 80 centimeters. The Green sea turtle is also
supposed to visit
Being able to dive to depths of 1200 meters, surviving in cold water of six degree Celsius, and traveling 12000 kilometers back to nesting grounds are some of the other amazing things that sea turtles can do. In addition turtles are part of a complex ecosystem web. Readers will be amazed to know that some algae will only grow on the shells of marine turtles.
Today we have pushed these magnificent creatures to the brink of extinction. Singularly a species lost may not affect us much, but if we take that attitude, part by part we will wipe out the entire biodiversity around us. Where do we draw the line?
At least let us provide these marine visitors a safe place when they arrive to nest on only three of our beaches. Is that too much to ask?
If you should live close to Morjim or Galgibag or Agonda, do take part in ‘turtle walks' on the beaches at night. I can assure you it is a wonderful experience, and the forest department and local volunteers will be most pleased to have you there.
