A dog feasts on dead olive ridley sea turtles on Paradip beach and remains of a 38-feet whale that was found along the Puri beach on Tuesday.
Decomposed bodies of olive ridleys were spotted along the shoreline right from Dhamra to Paradip that falls under the Gahirmatha marine sanctuary, the habitation corridors of these endangered species. The sighting of dead turtles at tourist spots in Pentha, Hukitola and Paradip has put the forest personnel in a spot of bother.
It has triggered a disturbing trend just before the onset of arribada, a Spanish term that describes the annual exercise of millions of turtles coming to the coast to lay eggs.
“The forest department has received reports of turtle bodies washing ashore. It is initiating measures on a war footing to arrest the mortality rate,” said Bimal Prasanna Acharya, the divisional forest officer of Rajnagar mangrove forest (wildlife) division.
“Around 1,000 dead olive ridleys have washed ashore. Forest officials are patrolling at 16 camps that extensively cover the beaches to count the dead reptiles. The bodies that were sighted at the tourist spots had been buried,” said an official. However, unofficial sources differ from the official figure and they believe the mortality rate is on a much higher scale.
In another development, the carcass of the 38-feet whale was also found on the shore along the Puri beach on Tuesday.
According to forest officials, the whale must have died over a month ago. Earlier on February 5, another 66-feet whale shark washed ashore the Gahirmatha marine sanctuary. Again on January 20, carcass of around 300 sea turtles were found on Puri beach near Lighthouse. Besides, the carcass of a bottlenose dolphin was also found on the seashore.
Picture by Sarat Patra and Telegraph picture