TURNING TURTLE

Olive Ridley sea turtles have been coming to the Gahirmatha coast in Odisha for thousands of years for mass nesting. But for two consecutive years now they have failed to nest here, though they have shown up

IN JANUARY 1998 hundreds of Olive Ridleys found on the Gahirmatha beach dead, drowned mostly, it turns out, by trawler nets in the seas, their bodies washed ashore by waves. In a travesty of known Olive Ridley behaviour, only 50 turtles managed to land this year to nest, as against hundreds of thousands in the past. In a 'normal' year it is sometimes difficult to walk on Gahirmatha, for the whole beach truly becomes a carpet of turtles. But now, as one drives along the Paradeep and Konark coast, thousands of dead turtles litter the shoreline, the shells bearing the initials J, F or M, put there by diligent Wildlife Institute of India (WII), researchers to indicate the month in which they were washed ashore.