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Nearly 700,000 Olive Ridley turtles have laid eggs in the Rushikulya rookery in Odisha’s Ganjam district during the eight days of mass nesting till February 23, 2025. It was a record and especially special since the endangered marine species gave the beach a miss last year.
The mass nesting (arribada in Spanish) in the river mouth, one of the world’s major rookeries, started at a moderate pace on February 16. In the subsequent days, however, a large number of Olive Ridleys started climbing on the beach to lay eggs.
To be exact, 6,98,718 Olive Ridley turtles have laid eggs on the beach till February 23, surpassing the record set in 2023 of 637,000, said Sunny Khokkar, divisional forest officer (DFO) of Berhampur. Experts predicted that a second phase of nesting might take place on the beach.
In 2023, arribada took place from February 23 to March 2, 2023, while some 550, 317 turtles visited the beach in 2022, during March 27 to April 4, the sources said.
In 2001, some 741,000 Olive Ridley turtles — the highest in India — had laid eggs in Gahirmatha, another major rookery in Odisha's Kendrapara district, said Basudev Tripathy, a senior scientist of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), which studies the species.
The mass nesting in Gahirmatha is yet to start this year, sources said.
“The better climatic condition and well maintained beach have helped more turtles lay eggs in Rushikulya rookery,” said Bivash Pandav, a senior scientist of Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun.
A good number of hatchlings are likely to emerge as the mass nesting were taking place in time in the rookery, predicted Tripathy. “The forest officials should protect the eggs from the predators till these hatch after around 45 days,” he said.
The turtles laid eggs during the day times for three to four days besides the night hours, said Rabindra Nath Sahu, secretary, Ganjam district sea turtle protection committee. “Day time nesting was recorded on the beach for only one or two days in the previous year they visited Rushikulya. But this year it continued for three to four days,” he added.
Moreover, the mass nesting took place over nine kilometres instead of five km previously, he said.
Dibya Shankar Behera, range officer, Khallikote said they have taken adequate precautions to keep watch on the eggs and predators like wild dogs, boars, birds and jackals, to ensure safe hatching of eggs. The area has been fenced off with nets. It has been divided into 50 segments, each allocated to a team including forest officials, volunteers and local villagers, said a forest officer.
Around 340 female turtles, which had been tagged by ZSI during 2021-23 on Odisha coast, have returned to Rushikulya mouth to lay eggs this time, informed Anil Mohapatra, a senior scientist and officer-in-charge of Estuarine Biology Research Center, Regional Center of ZSI, Gopalpur.
Most of the identified turtles had been tagged in the Rushikulya river mouth rookery in 2020-23 under the Olive Ridley turtle tagging programme, carried out jointly by the ZSI and the Odisha forest department, he said. Around 12,000 turtles were tagged at the Rushikulya rookery and Gahiramatha marine sanctuary during the period, he said.
“It implies that the same turtles will visit Odisha coast again for mass nesting,” said Tripathy.
“We have collected photographs of the tags from the turtles. We will conduct detailed studies on the tags after the mass nesting is complete,” said Mohapatra. In 2023, they had recaptured over 100 tagged turtles in Rushikulya river mouth, he added.
The initiative was started in January 2021 to study the movements of the marine creature.
