Mumbai: 80 Olive Ridley turtles hatch at Versova beach, activists happy

MUMBAI: Environmentalists and citizens in general are thrilled to have seen around 80 Olive Ridley turtles hatching at the

Versova

beach in Mumbai's north-western coast today. This happy phenomenon is reportedly taking place after nearly 20 years, thanks to the recent clean-up drive on the beach.

``This is indeed a very good news for our Versova beach. The 80 olive ridley turtles hatched in the morning and made a dash towards the sea. Earlier this beach was very dirty, with a lot of piled up plastic trash. That is why in the past no sea turtles were hatching here, as the garbage is a huge hurdle for the turtles to cross. But now, thanks to the Clean Versova Beach drive, we are all happy and blessed to have seen these newly hatched olive ridley turtles!'' said the lawyer and activist Afroz Shah, who has spearheaded the citizens movement to clean up the Versova beach.

Several people also posed photos and videos of the newly hatched turtles at Versova on social networking sites like Twitter.

``I have witnessed something surreal today. A life changing experience. 80 Olive Ridley turtles walking back into the sea,'' posted Shaunak Modi on Twitter.

``Yes yes, we did it! Here is the journey... lovely Mumbaikars, urban cities getting our olive ridley turtles back,'' wrote `Clean Up Versova' twitter handle.
Environmentalist D

Stalin

told TOI: ``This is a very good development at the cleaned up Versova beach. However care should be taken that the lights at the beach are made dimmer and the area cordoned off till the nesting period is fully over, as the human poachers are a threat for these turtles. Also, bright lights may confuse the young hatchlings.''

Stalin also stated that new tree plantations must not be done in the Versova beach, as that may prove to be a hurdle for the turtles to come to the coast for this purpose.
However, Afroz Shah replied: ``No trees are being planted inside the beach, but on the far out edges. So there will be no problem for the turtles. We are looking forward for more such new born turtles to make their way to the seawater. This is historic indeed.''

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