Berhampur: At least 48 Olive Ridley turtles fitted with metallic flipper tags have returned to the Rushikulya river in Odsiha’s Ganjam district to lay eggs in the last three days, official said on Tuesday.
“We have spotted around 48 tagged female turtles which returned to the Rushikulya rookery in their second phase of mass nesting period this time. We are expecting their number to increase at the end of the mass nesting. We have collected photographs of turtles with metallic tags. We will conduct detailed studies on the tags after the completion of mass nesting,” PTI reported, quoting Anil Mohapatra, a senior scientist and officer-in-charge of Estuarine Biology Research Center (EBRC), Regional Center of Zoological Survey India (ZSI), Gopalpur.
In 2023, over 100 tagged turtles were sighted in the Rushikulya river mouth, he added.
The ZSI in collaboration with the Odisha forest department had tagged around 3,000 turtles at Rushikulya and Gahirmatha beaches during their mass nesting in 2021 to study the movements of the marine species.
According to reports, the second wave of arribada (a mass nesting event when thousands of sea turtles come ashore to lay eggs) at Rushikulya rookery started on Saturday and a total of 1,30,031 turtles have laid eggs in the last three days on the 5-km-long beach from Purunabandh to Bateswar. “41,731 turtles laid eggs in the river mouth on Monday,” said Assistant conservator of forests (ACF) in-charge of Khallikote range Dibya Shankar Behera.
The first phase of mass nesting took place from February 16 to 23, during which 6.98 lakh Olive Ridleys laid eggs.
Earlier this month, around 10 female Olive Ridley sea turtles, which were tagged in Gahirmatha beach of Kendrapada district in March 2021, returned to the same beach at Nasi 1 and Nasi -2 islands for laying eggs during mass nesting of the marine species.
