GRAVEYARD OF OLIVE RIDLEYS

On January 10, 2025, nature enthusiast Rajiv Rai, who stays near Injambakkam beach, 16km from Chennai's Marina Beach, had a sighting he wished he hadn't seen: three large Olive Ridley carcasses on the sand. Next day, he found 11 carcasses; the day after, another 10. Though he alerted the Tamil Nadu forest department and fellow naturalists, he learnt later that the dismal carousel of 70-80 carcasses he kept encountering almost every day till the end of January were amongst the over 1,000 that had washed ashore Chennai's Marina, Kovalam and Chengalpattu beaches. An alarming situation because Olive Ridley, an endangered species, is crucial in maintaining the healthy balance of the marine ecosystem.

- By Jumana Shah

Though the Tamil Nadu forest department is awaiting post-mortem reports, naturalists claim the turtles drowned after getting entangled as 'bycatch'—the collateral capture of non-target species like dolphins and turtles—in fishing nets, particularly the banned trawling nets and gillnets used by large, mechanised fishing boats. Turtles need to surface every 40 to 45 minutes to breathe; trapped turtles drown due to prolonged entanglement. “In a typical year, 100 to 200 turtle deaths might be recorded along this stretch of the coastline,” says Dr Supraja Dharini, chairperson of TREE Foundation and a member of the Marine Turtle Specialist Group (MTSG) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Olive Ridley turtles travel 9,000 km from the Pacific Ocean to breed and nest on Indian shores, including swathes of the coast in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Between December and March, females lay their eggs on beaches. During this time, they stay in shallow waters close to the shore. Mechanised fishing is prohibited for up to five nautical miles by the Tamil Nadu Marine Fisheries Regulation Act