Olive Ridley Turtles

• 15 Nov 2019

Why in News

The Odisha government would compensate 8,000 fishermen families who would bear losses due to the fishing ban imposed for the protection of the Olive Ridley sea turtles.

• The ban is an annual fishing ban that would be in force from November, 2019 to May 31, 2020. During this period, lakhs of turtles would arrive at the Odisha coast for mass nesting.

Olive Ridley Turtles

• The Olive ridley turtles are the smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles found in the world, inhabiting warm waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.
• They are best known for their unique mass nesting called Arribada.
  
  • An arribada is a mass-nesting event when thousands of turtles come ashore at the same time to lay eggs on the same.
• The enormous number of Olive ridleys nest in Odisha (namely at three river mouths: Dhamara, Devi and Rushikulya) in India.
• The species is listed as Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List, Appendix 1 in CITES, and Schedule 1 in Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
• Olive-ridleys face serious threats across their migratory route, habitat and nesting beaches due to human activities such as unfriendly turtle fishing practices, development and exploitation of nesting beaches for ports, etc.

Dhamara River Mouth

• The Brahmani river (second largest river in Odisha) enters into the Bay of Bengal along with a combined mouth with the Mahanadi (the largest river in Odisha)  known as the Dhamara.

Devi River

• Devi river is one of the principal distributaries of Mahanadhi.
• It flows through Jagatsinghpur district and Puri district across Odisha state in India and joins the Bay of Bengal.

Rushikulya River

• It originates from Rushikulya hills of the Eastern Ghats in Phulbani district.
• It is 165 kms. long with 8900 sq.kms of catchment areas.
• It covers entire catchment area in the districts of Kandhamal and Ganjam district of Odisha.

Source: TH