Today, we are to learn about the endangered turtle species, how to help conserve them and also learn something new and fascinating about them.
A normal morning. After dropping kids in the school, my friends and I decided to let the steam off by getting together for a cup of coffee. "One of my friends (who we fondly call captain, coz she is one, she flies planes!!) said, "I'm planning to take my kid to the turtle conservatory today. Anyone cares to join?" I hadn't even heard of the conservatory, despite the 4 well spent years in the city. I sent some rapid fire questions her way, in the quest to gather some information. Where? Why? What happens there and stuff. She patiently answered most of them, and she along with the other friend at the table jointly said, " It's a lovely experience, you should come. Do bring your kid along." And boy, am I glad that conversation happened. It was a wonderful experience.
A group of nice minded and like minded people got together and formed an organisation called Students Sea Turtle Conservatory. This is their webpage. Their page has details on how they work. There are seven species of turtles it seems. And they seem to be in the endangered status. Chennai sea coast attracts olive riddley turtles, it says. One of the seven species. These turtle moms, when ready to lay eggs, walk to the shore, dig a hole in the coast, lay the eggs, cover them up and disappear into the sea. When the eggs hatch, the hatchlings come out and find their way back to the sea. The problem in this whole scenario being, there is no control over when the eggs would hatch, as in, the time of the day. As the hatchlings don't yet have a hardened back, and are so vulnerable to attack, they easily fall prey to the crows, eagles, seagulls. Also, itseems sometimes stray dogs dig up the eggs and eat them thereby sending the species towards extinction. Sad isn't it?
It says, the egg laying happens in the december to april period. And during this time, these nice people from the conservatory walk the entire sea coast as a team, and look out for these nests. Carefully dig them out and bury them back in fenced enclosures, thereby protecting them from dogs. After a particular amount of time, they carefully dig the mud around the hole, take the hatchlings out carefully and let them reach the shore after sunset, a time where the birds already found their way back home.
Here's a pic of a volunteer carefully digging up the hatchlings.
This one is a basketful of these tiny little hatchlings ready to go to the sea.
Their final walk.
At the time we went to the hatchery, there were two volunteers. A guy who supervised the whole thing and made sure things happened according to the plan. A girl who so patiently answered all our questions and kept giving us lot of information about these turtles.
I asked the volunteer, "when you guys put it so much effort to take care of the hatchlings, why not leave them in the sea, why are u making them walk the beach? " she said," The hatchlings imprint the beach they were born in while walking. Which means to say, when they have to lay eggs, they come back to the very same stretch of beach." Amazing isn't it?
She told us that we shouldn't touch the hatchlings and cause them discomfort. Because they wouldn't eat for the next two days and need every bit of their energy for swimming. And you know, the gender of the hatchlings depends on the heat the eggs are exposed to. It seems, one can say with a little certainty that the eggs that are towards the centre of the heap have a little more temp than the ones that form the periphery. I asked her why they didn't use incubators to regulate the temperature to make sure the distribution of female turtles were the same as the male ones. She said they didn't want to play God and wanted to help conserve the turtles with minimum intervention possible.
These turtles she said live for quite long like other turtles do. Adult grows upto 24 inches. It seems 100,000 turtles were reported dead over a period of ten years ( 93-03) along the sea coast of Orissa. Imagine how many could've perished all over the world. No wonder their status is endangered or threatened.
I asked her what could've killed so many of them over the years. She said many reasons. Fishing expeditions, discarded nets, sometimes humans dig the eggs out to eat it ( though it's illegal ), some nests get plundered by raccoons, stray dogs, sometimes the nests get infested with bacteria. The very next day I saw an article in the paper about a turtle who had lost his flipper to a discarded net. Sad isn't it?
That day after the visit, my son and I had quite a conversation about how cute and vulnerable the hatchlings were and what we could do to save them. He wanted to adopt one. I'm not sure if that's allowed or if it's causing the turtle more trouble than helping him. Instead, we vowed to spread the awareness amongst our friends and to bring them to this conservatory to let them see for themselves. You know itseems even the balloon that we discard ( let fly in the air) if it happens to fly over the sea before it bursts, the debris the balloon leaves also kills many turtles. I din't know that. Let's spread the word, cause the awareness and save the cute turtles!
A normal morning. After dropping kids in the school, my friends and I decided to let the steam off by getting together for a cup of coffee. "One of my friends (who we fondly call captain, coz she is one, she flies planes!!) said, "I'm planning to take my kid to the turtle conservatory today. Anyone cares to join?" I hadn't even heard of the conservatory, despite the 4 well spent years in the city. I sent some rapid fire questions her way, in the quest to gather some information. Where? Why? What happens there and stuff. She patiently answered most of them, and she along with the other friend at the table jointly said, " It's a lovely experience, you should come. Do bring your kid along." And boy, am I glad that conversation happened. It was a wonderful experience.
A group of nice minded and like minded people got together and formed an organisation called Students Sea Turtle Conservatory. This is their webpage. Their page has details on how they work. There are seven species of turtles it seems. And they seem to be in the endangered status. Chennai sea coast attracts olive riddley turtles, it says. One of the seven species. These turtle moms, when ready to lay eggs, walk to the shore, dig a hole in the coast, lay the eggs, cover them up and disappear into the sea. When the eggs hatch, the hatchlings come out and find their way back to the sea. The problem in this whole scenario being, there is no control over when the eggs would hatch, as in, the time of the day. As the hatchlings don't yet have a hardened back, and are so vulnerable to attack, they easily fall prey to the crows, eagles, seagulls. Also, itseems sometimes stray dogs dig up the eggs and eat them thereby sending the species towards extinction. Sad isn't it?
It says, the egg laying happens in the december to april period. And during this time, these nice people from the conservatory walk the entire sea coast as a team, and look out for these nests. Carefully dig them out and bury them back in fenced enclosures, thereby protecting them from dogs. After a particular amount of time, they carefully dig the mud around the hole, take the hatchlings out carefully and let them reach the shore after sunset, a time where the birds already found their way back home.
Here's a pic of a volunteer carefully digging up the hatchlings.
This one is a basketful of these tiny little hatchlings ready to go to the sea.
Their final walk.
At the time we went to the hatchery, there were two volunteers. A guy who supervised the whole thing and made sure things happened according to the plan. A girl who so patiently answered all our questions and kept giving us lot of information about these turtles.
I asked the volunteer, "when you guys put it so much effort to take care of the hatchlings, why not leave them in the sea, why are u making them walk the beach? " she said," The hatchlings imprint the beach they were born in while walking. Which means to say, when they have to lay eggs, they come back to the very same stretch of beach." Amazing isn't it?
She told us that we shouldn't touch the hatchlings and cause them discomfort. Because they wouldn't eat for the next two days and need every bit of their energy for swimming. And you know, the gender of the hatchlings depends on the heat the eggs are exposed to. It seems, one can say with a little certainty that the eggs that are towards the centre of the heap have a little more temp than the ones that form the periphery. I asked her why they didn't use incubators to regulate the temperature to make sure the distribution of female turtles were the same as the male ones. She said they didn't want to play God and wanted to help conserve the turtles with minimum intervention possible.
These turtles she said live for quite long like other turtles do. Adult grows upto 24 inches. It seems 100,000 turtles were reported dead over a period of ten years ( 93-03) along the sea coast of Orissa. Imagine how many could've perished all over the world. No wonder their status is endangered or threatened.
I asked her what could've killed so many of them over the years. She said many reasons. Fishing expeditions, discarded nets, sometimes humans dig the eggs out to eat it ( though it's illegal ), some nests get plundered by raccoons, stray dogs, sometimes the nests get infested with bacteria. The very next day I saw an article in the paper about a turtle who had lost his flipper to a discarded net. Sad isn't it?
That day after the visit, my son and I had quite a conversation about how cute and vulnerable the hatchlings were and what we could do to save them. He wanted to adopt one. I'm not sure if that's allowed or if it's causing the turtle more trouble than helping him. Instead, we vowed to spread the awareness amongst our friends and to bring them to this conservatory to let them see for themselves. You know itseems even the balloon that we discard ( let fly in the air) if it happens to fly over the sea before it bursts, the debris the balloon leaves also kills many turtles. I din't know that. Let's spread the word, cause the awareness and save the cute turtles!
Good one Vasu!!
ReplyDeleteGood one Vasu!!
ReplyDelete