Drive launched to keep turtle habitation free in Odisha, nine fishermen held

Odisha Forest personnel arrested nine sea-going fishermen on the charge of carrying out unlawful fishing activity in the Gahirmatha marine sanctuary in Kendrapara district, officials said on Saturday.

A vessel used by the intruders for fishing along the prohibited sanctuary area was seized by the forest patrol team. The intruders were later remanded to judicial custody on Saturday, said officials. Thirty quintals of sea fish besides 12 fishing nets were seized from their possession.

Currently, a ban has been clamped on sea fishing activity within 20 km of the coast at the river mouths of Dhamara, Devi and Rusikulya in view of the nesting season of Olive ridley sea turtles. Prohibition remains round the year in Gahirmatha marine sanctuary. 

The fishing vessel had trespassed into prohibited sanctuary corridors contravening the provisions of the wildlife protection act, the Orissa Marine fishing regulation act (OMFRA) and mandatory rules of marine sanctuary, said forest officials.

Meanwhile, a report from Berhampur said that in a bid to facilitate the annual mass nesting of endangered Olive Ridley turtles near the river Rushikulya river mouth, in Ganjam district, forest personnel along with the local fishermen on Saturday launched a beach cleaning and awareness drive.  

The beach near Old Podampeta was cleaned and it will continue from time to time, said Amlan Nayak, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Berhampur.

Around 50 persons, including forest staff of Khallikote forest range, picked up the debris from the beach during their clean-up drive. The mass nesting of Olive Ridley turtles is likely to take place in the last week of February or the first week of March, while their mating will start in the sea from December.

Cleaning the beach before the mass nesting was one of the strategies adopted by the forest department for the safe and smooth nesting of sea turtles. "Before mass nesting, every year, we organise cleaning of the main site of the mass nesting with involvement of the local community," said the DFO. This practice was going on for last some years, he said.

After Gahiramatha, the Rushikulya river mouth has emerged as the second-largest rookery of Olive Ridley turtles.

A record number of over 5,50,317 turtles had laid eggs in the Rushikulya beach during the eight-day mass nesting the last time, which started on March 27, 2022, sources said.

The DFO said sea patrolling was intensified in the Bay of Bengal to crackdown on illegal fishing. The government has imposed a seven-month fishing ban in the coastal area from Prayagi to Arjeepalli in the district, from November 1 for the protection of turtles.

The olive ridley turtles accorded as schedule-1 animals under the wildlife protection act for their highly threatened status, get entangled in the fishing nets and die of asphyxiation. The turtles also perish in large numbers after getting hit by the fast-moving propellers of the fishing trawlers and crafts, forest personnel said.