Tourists in India have been filmed poking and clambering over vulnerable olive ridley sea turtles.
In video filmed on February 25, residents of Ganjam in Odisha, an eastern Indian state on the Bay of Bengal, said it was quite common to see visitors chasing the slow moving and gentle olive ridleys as there were no guards on local beaches to discourage them.
The Rushikulya coast near Ganjam is considered to be a major nesting site of olive ridleys and hundreds of thousands of these sea turtles come here every year to lay eggs.
Their vulnerable status comes from the fact that they nest in a very small number of places. Any disturbance at even one nest beach may have huge repercussions on the entire population.
In India, olive ridley turtles are listed as a protected species and handling them is a violation of law.
After the disturbing visuals surfaced, Chief Wildlife Warden (CWW) Sandeep Tripathy said: “The local officials have been asked to take preventive measures to stop recurrence of such incidents.”
Many experts said officials should do more to protect the turtles.
Honorary Wildlife Warden of Khurda Subhendu Mallik said: “Fishing with boats and trawlers is banned during the nesting season. But you can still see so many boats here, which are death traps for these turtles.”
“The area must be kept under CCTV surveillance and uniformed forest officials should be deployed to stop harassment of turtles. The media should stop promoting mass nesting as a tourism opportunity,” he added.
According to the WWF, although olive ridleys are currently the most abundant of all sea turtles, they are listed as a threatened species because they nest in only a very small number of places and are therefore vulnerable to any disturbances to their habitats.
