Eggs of a turtle
March 13th, 2006 — VyomaIt was a fine Friday evening, and I set out to meet my friends from my workplace. A common conclusion to such an excursion would mean that we are going to have a party, but such was not the case.
We drove our vehicles and parked it at Besent Nagar’s beach, that is, Elliot’s beach. Yes, I rode my Black Beauty to that place. From there, we hired an auto-rickshaw to the target beach which was further south.
We came to Neelanganai Beach at around 11:30. A person called Arun was organizing the event. It was supposed to be a 3 hour walk back to Elliot’s beach along the shore line. We were to look out for fresh nests of Olive Ridley turtles, and perform ‘egg-pulling’ - that is collect the eggs.
The Olive Ridley turtles are one of the smaller marine turtles. These turtles are facing the danger of extinction and hence, some of us are on the efforts to save them. By taking these eggs to hatcheries and replicating the nest structure, and then releasing the hatchlings into the sea, we are increasing their survival rations. About one in one thousand eggs survive to adulthood.
We set out for the walk at around 12:30 am and soon found the track along a pulled over boat of some local fishermen. Soon, they eggs were dug out. After that, it was a long walk and it seemed like we were done for the day, but some where past the midway, we spotted another inbound track of the turtle. After some time of poking into the sand, we found the nest and the eggs were retrived. As these eggs were retrived, the measurements of the nest were taken so that they can be replicated at the hatchery where the eggs were going to be relocated.
After a good three and a half hours of walk, we approached the Elliot’s beach, and there was a mild dissapointment that we had not seen one of their kind, when there were cries from those ahead of us. We ran ahead to see a mother turtle crawling its way back to the sea after laying and covering its nest. All of us cheered and encouraged it as it crawled back to the sea. Once it was in the water, its domain, it was as swift as anything else.
This time, as the track was fresh, we could easily spot the nest and the eggs were retrived. The people organizing the event took care of the eggs, and we drove back home to a sleep that went well into the midday.
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