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Olive Ridley

This is an account of a short day (night) trip to the beach in Chennai in search of Olive Ridley turtles. I have read about these turtles several times in the papers and also about a group of enthusiasts in Chennai who are trying to save this endangered species. Last Friday (9 March '07) I got a chance to tag along with this group and to see and photograph some turtles. I took a day off from work and left for Chennai on Thursday afternoon. My contact for the Olive Ridleys was Arun, referred to me by Chithappa (found him from an article in the newspaper), who is one of the people actively involved in "turtle conservation". My parents, Latha perima, and Prabha perima also planned to come along. However, Arun said that the Friday walk was not for a large crowd. He suggested that I should come alone on Friday and the others can come on Sat or Sun. I later found out that this was primarily because they wanted to limit the disturbance to turtles (one person flash photographing rather than 60 odd). Arun asked me to meet up with Adhith at Nilankarai at 12 AM.

Here is all about the Olive Ridley turtle (the one ppt slide version):

• Live in the ocean and come to land only to lay eggs
• Have flippers, not feet
• Do not have gills - can hold their breath for a really long time, but have to come up for air
• Unlike regular turtles they cannot retract head and limbs into their shell
• They are endangered but sadly lack the cute cuddly image of the panda and therefore do not receive as much attention

  I met up with Adhith and his fellow walkers - Atul, Nakul, and Shravan - at Nilankarai and after a quick stop for tea we started off walking along the shore. Spotting a turtle at night is a pretty difficult task. The trick is to identify their tracks - since they do not have feet they drag themselves using their flippers leaving flattened tracks like in the picture on the left. Adhith spotted some tracks and led us back up the beach - carefully cutting a wide arc away from the the tracks and then turning back. He got us behind a turtle that was busy digging its nest. The Olive Ridley digs a shallow (about 1-1.5 foot deep) hole, lays its eggs in this nest, and covers up the hole before heading back to sea. It will not return to check on the eggs or care for the young. Each nest could have a hundred or more eggs (we found over a hundred eggs in each of the three nests we found that night). I guess this species is not a very nurturing parent and relies on sheer volume to keep the family line going.

  We waited for the turtle to finish digging its nest and start laying eggs before approaching it. If disturbed when building its nest the turtle will run away but once it starts laying eggs it is in a trance like state. During this time it is possible to get close and even touch the turtle. I wanted to avoid using a flash but the light was pretty low and I had forgotten to take my tripod (left it behind in the car - aarrrgh) so most of my photos used flash. All of the shots I tried without a flash did not turn out too good (like this pic).

  While we waited for the turtle to finish laying eggs a couple of oversized cops approached us on a small little moped. Picture this: two cops with bellies sagging way below their belt, sitting on a small moped (engine struggling to keep them moving). A photo of the two would have been as interesting as the turtle. After enquiring about what we were doing there in the middle of the night they asked a few questions about the turtle. Once convinced that we were doing "research" they sped off (well as fast as the moped would carry them).

  Once it was done laying eggs the turtle covered its nest and waddled back to the sea. I followed it all the while shooting away with my camera set on auto. It was pretty dark and I could see close to nothing through the eye piece and clicked hoping I had her in the frame. Most of the photos came out pretty good. Sighting a nesting turtle is fairly uncommon. This group of walkers had seen only a couple of others the entire week so I was lucky to see one that night.

  After collecting the eggs from the nest we walked on further down the beach. We encountered two more nests (no turtles), fishing boats, and several stray dogs. Check out pictures of the 200 Kg Manta Ray from one of the boats. Some of the strays were pretty aggressive. In general I don't have a problem with dogs but when it comes to strays I am scared of getting bitten (not too keen on catching rabies). One big tip I learnt from that night - shining a flash light into the dogs eyes will make it stop approaching you. Even pretty aggressive dogs will veer away.

  We walked further along the beach to the "turtle hatchery". This is a small fenced-off area of the beach where Arun and Co relocate the turtle eggs. The eggs are collected from nests all over the beach and relocated to an identical hole inside the hatchery. The team records the depth and width of each nest to recreate them accurately. The relocation is to protect the hatchlings from modern world perils. Once they hatch, the young turtles dig their way out of the nest and then head in the direction of sunlight. But today the city lights appear brighter than sunlight (at dawn) so the turtles head inland rather than out to sea and eventually get eaten up by dogs or run over by vehicles. This conservation group allows the eggs to hatch in the hatchery and then release the baby turtles close to the water. I was lucky once again - a batch of eggs from a previous night had hatched. Lots of pictures of little turtles here.

  After the last batch of eggs were relocated to their new nest, finally the night was done. When we walked back to Elliots beach road it was about 5 AM. It was an interesting night and I was probably very lucky to see a nesting turtle and hatchlings on my first walk. Maybe next season I will go once more (and remember to take the tripod).

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