FSL India Blog

As the monsoon season started this month the sea is very rough now,causing wounded sea turtles that are foraging too close to the shore to strand. In the last week fishermen reported four stranded sea turtles, most of them Olive Ridleys out of them one is critically wounded. The sea turtle team went to the beaches several time to assess the condition of the animals. So we could release 2 of them immediately back to the ocean but 2 which are not in a position to swim are taken care by our contact person Daasi Karvi at Maravanthe.

Every year millions of olive ridleys are coming to the shore of the Bay of Bengal. It is known as the second biggest mass nesting area for turtles in the world. Nowadays the sea turtles are an endangered species. Commercial fish trawling is the main threat, because the turtles get trapped in the nets and drowning to death. Especially in Orissa one can see the result of this intensive industrial fishing. Thousands of dead sea turtles are washed to the sandy beaches every day. Many NGO’s along the coasts of India try to protect the turtles from this danger. So does the Green Life Rural Association (GLRA) with whom FSL India is going to start a project. FSL India will send volunteers to Orissa for “The Turtle Friends Project” of GLRA to change the situation for the turtles for the better.

Thank you Juliane for the article…….

Since the beginning of June to till now FSL saved 5 injured sea turtles under the project area. Out of 5 protected turtles 3 are Olive Ridleys and 2 Green Turtles. On 27th of June our sea turtle co-ordinators Dinesh and Austin rescued a wounded green turtle and taken it to Dasi Kharvy for neccessary treatments, which increased the number up by 5 in six weeks. Becuase of the roughness of sea water all the turtles are now in Dasi Karvy’s observation and soon it will be realesed to the sea.