Baby olive ridley turtles on the Gahirmatha beach on Friday.

These baby turtles have emerged marking the culmination of annual sojourn of these highly threatened marine animals.

Hatchlings have started to break out of eggshells and are crawling towards their seaward journey. The whole of Nasi-II Island is teeming with baby turtles, said a forest official. Nearly 60,000 lakh turtles have arrived at the nesting ground to lay eggs. The number this year is much less compared to the preceding year when 4.16 lakh turtles had turned up at the beach.

After the eggs are incubated under natural process, the hatchlings come out after 45 or 55 days. "The emergence of hatchlings is expected to continue for at least a week. The one-kilometre beach is virtually littered with hatchlings. The babies are jostling for space on the beach to loiter around before their final plunge into the seawater," said Gahirmatha forest range officer Subrat Patra.

Text by Manoj Kar, Telegraph picture