Though the sight of blood scares me, that night, sympathy and despair shrouded my fear. The turtle was dead, injured and lifeless, a life lost, a story unsaid. As the group parted, I found myself looking at what I had come to find, but not in the way I had expected to.
The majestic Olive Ridley turtle lay sprawled at my feet, dead, with blood oozing from its mouth and foot. As the adults and children gazed unflinchingly, Dr Supraja Dharini reached there. With impassivity and eyes that revealed the disappointment at having lost another turtle to death’s embrace, she proceeded to identify the cause and nature of the death.
It had started as a pleasant walk on the beach with a clear sky, millions of stars and a thrilling possibility of seeing the Olive Ridley turtle.
Before we were to embark on the turtle walk, we met Dr Supraja Dharini, the founder of Kadal Aamai Padukapparlargal(KAP), translated as Sea Turtle Protection Force. The KAP volunteers essentially comprise of youth; the urban educated as well as the fishermen are united by one goal- to conserve the Olive Ridley turtle. “Community conservation was our goal,” she said.
Dr Supraja Dharini was to be our guide for the night. “Yesterday, the group didn’t spot any turtles. They were pretty disappointed”, she told the eager faces, young and old, that faced her. Discouragement was the last thing that we had expected before embarking on our ‘adventure’. We reached the barely lit Nainarkuppam beach, a few minutes after we had left the house and were met by the fishermen volunteers of KAP.
Dyanashekar, one of the volunteers who met us at the beach guided us to the hatchery that KAP volunteers had set up. The dedication of the volunteers had rubbed off on the Government. C.K.Sridharan, the Government Wildlife warden had actively participated in the conservation awareness programmes.
The hatchery was a patch of sand, surrounded by a wooden fence to keep animals and children out. We excavated two nests and buried them here. It keeps the eggs away from animals and children.” he said. Five volunteers are selected to keep a watch every night.
Every year, the female travels from
The facts of the turtle migration give a rosy picture, but fail to justifiably explain the declining numbers. Dynashekhar explained that the turtle eggs are often eaten up dogs, used as playthings by children or sold for money. Sometimes birds feed on the hatchlings. Often attracted by the roadside lights, the turtles literally turn their back and waddle in the opposite direction towards their doom.
“We incubate the eggs in the hatchery and then release the hatchlings about 15 metres away from the sea to ensure they make their way into the sea safely," he said.
We resumed our walk, albeit in clumps. Specks of torchlight dotted the beach. Every time a group of figures halted and huddled together, the torch pointing at something, the others would trot towards it. It was turning out to be a night of false alarms. Just when impatience was creeping into footsteps and whispers, a torch wielding group stopped at a distance away from me. A few seconds before the group huddled over where the torch was pointing, I quickly caught a glimpse of a mound.
With a thudding heart, I ran to the group. After my initial attempts of peering over shoulders and through crooks of arms and legs, a few people from the group broke off to discuss what they had seen and then I saw the blood.
Dyanashekhar, with deft, experienced hands rolled the turtle on its shell. “This is the fifth death of the month”, she said and gestured to the cuts on the mouth and feet. “They get stuck in the gillnets used in trawler fishing boats and are unable to extricate themselves.” After noting the measurements of the turtle, Dyanashekhar rolled the turtle back onto its stomach, causing for more blood to seep out from its mouth.
Though I had heard stories of turtle deaths, reality had struck without a warning. As our group trudged ahead, with a few awkward comments and many unanswered questions, Dr Supraja Dharini threw a backward glance and dejectedly muttered, “They will dig a pit and bury it.”
We were again in small groups, with and without torches, with the moonlight or the distant dots of lights to guide our path. Our senses heightened, we became aware of other creatures who were our companions of the dark. Every time the waves lapped the shore; it threw out creatures that tittered away - crabs! My curiosity aroused, I noticed the small, almost perfectly round holes that had been bored into the moist sand.
My companion was not very keen to get herself bitten, as she expressed eloquently with soft shrieks everytime we wandered a tad bit close to the shore. “Dodging crabs is an adventure too!”, she exclaimed while we walked to the group headed by Dr Supraja Dharini.
“I have been atop a whale, declared Dyanashekhar shyly after being prodded by her to relate his experiences as a fisherman. “We were on out our kattamaran (the fishing raft), when suddenly we found ourselves on a bump and felt a huge form gliding under us, under the water. Had it raised its head, we would have found ourselves in the water, but it just harmlessly glided past” , he concluded.
While he continued to relate the stories of sharks and dolphins to the excited group wherein children outnumbered the adults, I turned back when it was clear that the walk had ended and it was time to return, now paying attention to all that I hadn’t observed in my eagerness to spot a turtle. I slowly walked back, thoughtful, ignoring the crabs, certain that luck wasn’t in my favour.
As I deeply breathed in the fresh sea air with shut eyes, an excited chatter rose. A cluster had formed again and my mind screamed and prayed not to be confronted with death again. This time, there was no need for shoving anyone aside.
Before me, lay the final rung of our quest; an Olive Ridley turtle, alive and nesting. As it dropped its eggs into the nesting pit, an imperceptible sigh escaped Dr Supraja Dharini. Like a proud mother of the nesting mother, she instructed Dyanashekhar, and the other volunteers who had joined us to partially clear the opening of the pit to aid better vision of the egg-laying. A birth had embalmed our taste of death.
From being Lord Vishnu’s second avatar to the ‘ambassador of the ocean’ to a seaside delicacy and finally, an endangered species, the Olive Ridley turtle had come a long way. Under the cynosure of camera flashes, the foundation of another Olive Ridley turtle lineage was being laid.
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