If you take a walk along the beach at night, chances are that you will cross paths with a living, breathing creature that evolved during the age of the dinosaurs- the giant sea turtle.
Sea turtles nest along the Coromandel coast. If you have been fortunate enough to have witnessed this phenomenon — of a magical creature coming ashore under cover of darkness, wet and glistening, casting sprays of white sand skywards, settling down, dancing and then quickly heading for and being swallowed up by the waves. On a dark night, with the rhythm of the sea in the background, with the wind on your face and as this ancient drama unfolds – you can not but be moved.
It was a true privilege to be present at the laying of turtle eggs. To be near enough to hear her breath, to see the eggs she was dropping into the cavity she had dug. To feel such a close contact with a free wild creature and accompany her back to the sea. We are deeply grateful for the opportunity we were given and hope that everything possible will undertaken to protect these creatures and their laying grounds. We just spent two weeks visiting Hindu temples and shrines all around Tamilnadu. Tonight’s experience is to me as true a manifestation of the presence of God.
Anne Bridge, 5th February, 97, Sotheby’s SOAS Group
The belief that Sea Turtles are manifestations of God is not new. Turtles have been revered since time immemorial by traditional fishing communities as an Avatar of Vishnu, About a decade ago, a fortunate or unfortunate mama-turtle on her quest for a nesting site fell down the steps and into the Kapaleeshwar Temple near Madras. She promptly became the object of worship and was later guided back to sea.
Of the Eight living sea turtle species of the world, the smallest – the Olive Ridley, Lepidochelys olivacea, is the most common nesting species on the east coast of India. Arriving each year, around the onset of the North East monsoon, hundreds of these animals, both males and females instinctively congregate off the beaches where they had hatched a few years earlier. The homing mechanism that enables them to locate the beach where they hatched after a journey of a few thousand kilometers, with an accuracy of a few kilometers, and sometimes a few meters – remains a mystery.
The adult nesting females about a meter in length, after running a gauntlet of mechanised trawlers, drift nets and the surf comes ashore under cover of darkness. She hauls her now heavy body above the high water line and with some instinct and sometimes after a few abortive beginnings proceeds to excavate a flask shaped nest. Into this goes anywhere between 60 & 200 eggs. She fills up the pit with sand and then uses her hard armoured underbelly to pack it in. She appears to be dancing and this is a truly delightful spectacle. The show is not over. She then throws sprays of sand with her long wing like fore flippers all over and around the area – very effectively camouflaging the nesting site.
Seven weeks later the matchbox sized hatchlings arrive, nurtured by the sun that warms the earth. When all or most of them have hatched, they begin to shovel sand together till there is a flow of sand downwards and a wave of baby turtles upwards. They wait again, just beneath the surface till nightfall, emerge together and head for the sea.
The large number of eggs laid within a season offsets heavy predation levels at egg, hatchling & juvenile stages. It is estimated that only one out of a hundred eggs laid actually survive till adulthood, but this has been enough to ensure the survival of the species. This survival strategy is, however extremely fragile and loss of nesting habitats, pollution and poaching may tilt the scales towards extinction. Global warming has implications in the lives of sea turtles that are inconceivable to most of humanity. Sex of the hatchlings are deter mined by temperature. It has been documented that hotter sand favors faster incubation and tends to enhance production of female hatchlings leading to imbalanced sex ratios in sea turtle populations and a subsequent decline of the species.
India and Indians have always had an innate empathy with the natural world. That this empathy was inherited was fact until a couple of generations ago. The thought of harming a sea turtle was unheard of, considered taboo among communities that made their living from the sea. But then things changed. Walking the beach one night – we came across a fresh carcass with a strange flesh wound. Questioning the locals revealed that a young, inebriated fisherman had disturbed her just before she nested, When she began retreating to the sea – he hauled her ashore, cut her side open and relieved her of her as yet un-layed eggs. She probably died later at sea. We recovered a few dozen of her eggs from the shamed elders in the village – most of which failed to hatch.
Since the early seventies, a number of organisations including the Madras Snake Park Trust, The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) and the Tamil Nadu Forest Department have been involved in Sea Turtle Conservation along the Coromandel coast.
In the late eighties a small obscure, ever changing group – The Student’s Sea Turtle Conservation Network (SSTCN) was formed. Since then, each year a hatchery is constructed and the group endeavors to rescue and relocate sea turtle nests that are in danger. You can join them during season (December – March) on the Ridley Trail.
