Disturbances keeping away turtles from nesting at Morjim!
SHWETA KAMAT
PANJIM, DEC 25
Unpredicted rainfall and increasing human intervention on the beach has kept Olive Ridley turtles away from their traditional nesting site at Morjim, this year.
Forest Department officials stated that the turtle nesting season, which begins from October and lasts till March, has witnessed only one nesting and that too off late, in the month of December. “We cannot pin point the main reason for the setback,” Deputy Conservator of Forest (DCF), D N F Carvalho told Herald.
Confirming a single nesting at Morjim, he said that almost three months have passed and the protected nesting site has not seen much turtle crowd.
Explaining the cause of single nesting in last three months, Carvalho said that drastic climate changes all over or disturbance on beaches frequented by them has scared them away.
“Human activities, including the direct harvest of adults and eggs, incidental capture in commercial fisheries’ nets and loss of nesting habitat can also be the prime reasons,” the DCF added.
He also pointed out that the increasing tourist activities along the shore have kept turtles away from the nesting. “The beach activities are increasing every day. The lighting, late night music forces turtles to return back to sea,” Carvalho said adding that sudden rainfall in November and December has also contributed for the disturbance for nesting.
Though the turtle conservation in the State started in 1996, but it actually took off in 1997 at Morjim after much effort by the environmentalists and the Forest Department.
Along with Morjim, Agonda and Galjibaga are other two protected nesting sites, where around 14 forest officials for counting the nesting turtles as well as to protect the eggs from natural predators.
However, nesting sites at Agonda and Galjibaga saw good number of turtles. The department has released 174 hatchlings out of 134 in Agonda while 80 at Galjibaga, for the season.
“The nesting has been good here. The turtles mostly come at night time. On an average, each Olive Ridley turtle lays about 120 to 150 eggs in their one hour process from which hatchlings emerge after 45-50 days,” the official stated.
It is believed that only 1 in 1000 hatchlings survive to adulthood as these eggs are subject to damage by predators like dogs, jackals, wild boar, hyenas, crows, eagles and gulls. They are also subject to being washed away due to sea erosion.
Since last two years, the turtle conservation in the State had suffered a setback as only three nestings were reported in 2008-09, while 5-6 in 2009-10.
According to the Forest Department data in 2006-07, 20 nests were reported at Agonda (5) and Galjibaga (15) which laid 1534 eggs of which 1328 were hatched and released in the water. In 2007-08, 14 were reported where Agonda appeared to be a much-sought after destination as ten nestings were reported while Galgibaga had half the number. Around 1026 eggs were laid of which 896 were hatched and released.
Forest official said that the Olive Ridley turtle (female), travel from Atlantic Ocean to Indian coast only for the purpose of breeding.
Prof B C Chowdhery, an expert from Wildlife Institute of India (WII), who was down in Goa in April, this year had said turtle nesting sites in Goa are largely unprotected and had urged State government to declare these sites as ‘conservation reserves’ to insulate them from getting disturbed.
“I feel that Goa government is very much reluctant to go ahead with the proposal mainly due to tourism industry, which is growing at a faster rate here and they will not like to disturb it,” the expert had alleged.
