In a refreshing turn of events in the turtle conservation programme, the endangered Olive Ridley sea turtles have reappeared at Eakakulanasi Island of the Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary for mass nesting after a gap of 33 years.

“The idyllic beach at the island had apparently undergone sea erosion, leading to the beach profile getting truncated. However, the beach has been elongating since 2020 due to accretion, creating a conducive environment for female turtles to arrive en masse to lay eggs. The marine species last appeared at the beach in 1992, when as many as three lakh turtles laid eggs. This is an exceedingly positive development in the ongoing turtle protection initiative under the stewardship of the Odisha Forest Department,” said Manas Das, Assistant Conservator of Forests.

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The profile of the Ekakulanasi island beach, which was around 4 kilometre long earlier, has now elongated to 8 km due to natural accretion. The nesting beach is now in perfect shape and has hosted 1.70 lakh turtles in the past 48 hours.

Apart from the island beach, the Nasi-2 beach, also known as the Outer Wheeler Island beach, has emerged as a favourite nesting site, with 2.63 lakh turtles emerging on the sandy beach to dig pits and lay eggs, the officer added.

The Olive Ridley turtles turn up in millions for mass nesting along the Odisha coast every year. Gahirmatha beach, off the Bay of Bengal coast in Kendrapara district, is incidentally acclaimed as the world’s largest-known nesting ground for these turtles. Apart from Gahirmatha, these threatened aquatic animals turn up at the Rushikulya and Devi river mouths for mass nesting, a phenomenon known as ‘arribada’.

It’s only the female turtles that virtually invade the nesting beaches usually in the dead of night, to lay eggs—a phenomenon otherwise described as ‘arribada’ in Spanish. After instinctively laying eggs, the turtles leave the nesting ground and return to the deep sea. Hatchlings emerge from these eggs after 45-60 days. It is a rare natural phenomenon where the babies grow without their mother, officials informed.