Puri: Carcasses of at least 10 Olive Ridley turtles were found on sea beach of Odisha’s Puri town on Saturday.
The tourists to the beach were surprised to find the dead Olive Ridley, an endangered species of turtles, in the evening. Soon the local people came to know about it and thronged the beach.
On being informed, officials of the Forest Department rushed to the spot. They carried the turtles, which had marks of fresh wound and were bleeding, to a deserted place in the beach and hurriedly buried those.
The environmentalists, who also went to the beach, expressed their grave concern over the action of the Forest officials. They suspected that the Olive Ridleys were killed by fishing boats in the deep sea and their bodies washed ashore.
Saroj Jena, an environmentalist, said the Forest officials should have sent the bodies of Olive Ridleys for post-mortem to ascertain the cause of their death. It would have helped prevent the rare turtles from getting killed in future.
“Though the state government has banned mechanised boats for deep sea fishing from November to May to protect breeding of the Olive Ridleys, apparently illegal fishing is continuing unabated. As these turtles had injury marks, those might have been caught in nylon fishing nets and later, thrown into sea by the fishermen,” he said.
He regretted that at a time when the state government is claiming to be spending crores of rupees for protection of Olive Ridley, such a large number of turtle carcasses speak otherwise about protective measures.
