MADURAI: Wildlife officials at the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park recovered a whopping 1,489
turtle eggs
from 13 nesting sites along the
Ramanathapuram
coast in
Tamil Nadu on Monday morning.
According to official sources, this is the first time that they have collected so many eggs on a single day. On Sunday, they collected 1,304 eggs from 11 nesting sites.
“We collected 13,000 eggs in previous nesting season, a record high number for nesting season along the
coast
of marine national park. Even then, the highest recovery on a day was more than 600 eggs,” said forest ranger officer of Mandapam range S Sathish.
After the Olive Ridley
turtle
nesting season started, based on instructions of wildlife warden T K Ashok Kumar, wildlife officials started gathering the turtle eggs from nests, securing them in a hatchery at Mukuntharayarchathiram. A 15-member team consisting of local fishermen and anti-poaching watchers are keeping a vigil at seashore along the national park, looking for possible nesting sites, gathering the eggs to hatchery upon spotting one.
Collective efforts paid rich dividends last year, as 12,000 out of 13,000 turtle eggs hatched, and officials are hoping that number of eggs will cross the last year figure this time.
The total number of eggs collected is 10,458 eggs from 89 nesting sites so far. The season is expected to last till March end or mid-April as it happened last year. “We released 12,000 hatchlings into the sea last year, which was rewarding to all our conservative measures. We are hopeful that the number will go up significantly this year,” Sathish said.
There is a hatchery in Oppilan coastal village in Tuticorin district which falls under the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park. Nearly 4,000 turtle eggs had been collected there so far, wildlife officials said.
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