Express News Service By

VISAKHAPATNAM: Olive Ridley turtles which made the north Coastal Andhra their breeding nest, are suffering from extreme biotic pressure caused due to increasing number of visitors and the beach tourism development activities along the beaches. Predators like dogs with about a lakh population in the city, are also posing a threat to the lives of these endangered species.

As per investigations by the Forest authorities of Vizag division, there has been around 10 per cent increase in the nesting grounds of Olive Ridleys on the beaches compared to last year. The number grew from 316 in 2014-15 to 326 in 2015-16 over the Vizag-Bheemili stretch. But surprisingly, the average number of eggs per nest has came down drastically. The success rate of the hatchlings remained above 80 per cent at the hatcheries.

“As against 38,216 eggs found from the nests last year, we collected 37,768 eggs during January-March this year between the Naval Coastal Battery and Bheemili. All the eggs were kept for hatching at three hatcheries established by our department - two at Ramakrishna Beach and one at Jodugullapalem,” said divisional forest officer B Dhanujaya Rao, after the first set of 5,700 turtles were released into the Bay of Bengal at RK Beach on Friday morning. To ensure that the baby turtles escape into the deep sea before predators swooped on them, they were released before the sunrise to cover some distance in the sea before the daybreak.

Animal lovers and environmentalists blame the decline in the number of eggs and increasing number of scattered nestings to the beach development activities in and around the city. “Instead of curbing beach erosion and providing a protective environment for the endangered species of Olive Ridley turtles, the government is ruining their habitats by developing the beach for tourism. Events like International Fleet Review, organised in February, soon after the breeding period started in January, also impacted the breeding of these turtles,” said M Krishna Chaitanya, a student of GITAM University.