ZSI Tags Over 8,000 Olive Ridley Turtles Along Odisha Coast For Conservation Study

Bhubaneswar: The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) in collaboration with Wildlife wing of Odisha’s Forest department has tagged more than 8,000 Olive Ridleys for conservation of the rare species of turtles.

According to Dr Dhriti Banerjee, Director, ZSI, the tagging of Olive Ridleys in Odisha was launched in 2021 and would continue as part of the long-term monitoring of the species at least for next 10 years. During the process, the ZSI under the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change carries out annual data collections, tagging and tag recaptures.

Dr Anil Mohapatra, scientist and officer-in-charge, Estuarine Biology Regional Centre, ZSI, said the present study adopting mark recapture method aims at identifying the nesting habitats, foraging habitats, post mating migration, post nesting migration, inter-rookery movement patterns, reproductive longevity and growth of the Olive Ridleys.

The tagging programme by ZSI along Odisha coast, 8450 turtles have been tagged since January 2021. Those include 188 mating pairs, 8252 female and 198 male turtles.

The main objective of the study is to check the migration and inter-rookery movement of Olive Ridley Sea turtles by monitoring along the Odisha coast through effective flipper tagging, both on the beaches as well as offshore waters. Besides, such an initiative helps to enumerate the environmental factors responsible for breeding of the sea turtles and developing suitable conservation and management plans.

Along with tagging, the offshore monitoring of the Olive Ridleys, onshore beach monitoring and nesting enumeration were also carried out along the mass nesting rookeries of Odisha Coast. Besides, night patrolling along the beaches were carried out to survey the nesting turtles and tag recapture.

It may be noted that Gahirmatha, Devi and Rushikulya are major mass nesting beaches of Olive Ridleys along the Odisha coastline in Bay of Bengal region.