KARACHI, Dec 2: As the sun descends and the hustle and bustle at city beaches subsides, another kind of visitors — the marine turtles — come out of the sea, drag themselves to the sandy seashore and lay eggs before returning to the water in the chilly nights of December, which is the last month of the peak egg-laying activity that starts in August.
The sandy suburban beaches of Hawkesbay and Sandspit are among the few tropical nesting sites where the two endangered marine turtle species, the Green Turtle and the Olive Ridley, come to lay their eggs. Neighbouring beaches with rock formations, corals and plenty of aquatic grass have enough food supply for these creatures.
The endangered species of turtles are protected under the Sindh Wildlife Protection Ordinance which bans poaching of the turtles, their eggs and hatchlings. The crime is punishable with long prison terms and heavy fines.
While the occasional egg-laying activity of the turtles continues round the year, the peak season starts from August and ends in December when a large number of mother turtles can be seen visiting the beach for the survival of their species.
The mother turtle pulls herself to the sandy beach, digs a body pit with its front flippers so that she is comfortably positioned and then digs a nest-hole of one to two feet depth where she lays more than a hundred soft leathery white ball-shaped eggs. After laying eggs and covering the nest, she drags herself back to the sea leaving the eggs at the mercy of nature. The whole process takes around two to three hours.
The eggs take between six and eight weeks to hatch after which the hatchlings come out of the pit and crawl on the beach towards the sea. During their brief journey on the seashore, the hatchlings recognise the beach. Interestingly, the females among them return to the same beach after 15 to 20 years to lay their eggs.
The turtles lay eggs twice or thrice a year after which they take a rest of at least a couple of years. However, their survival rate is very little. Only one out of every 1,000 eggs becomes an adult, as they have to face many predators.
As soon as the mother turtle leaves her nesting ground, stray dogs roaming around the beach come, dig up the nests and eat the eggs. The nests are easy to track with the traces lefts behind the mother turtle.
If the eggs remain safe and hatchlings come out of these nests, many of them fall prey to aquatic birds or stray dogs. Even if they succeed in reaching the sea, threats from marine predators continue for one year, which is also known as The Lost Year, till their shells become harder.
One of the major threats to an adult turtle is drowning when it is caught in fishing net and remains unable to breathe underwater.
The turtles face serious threat from the poachers also, as the turtle meat is in high demand in the far eastern countries where it is considered to be a delicacy. Its fat is used to prepare aphrodisiac drugs, the skin is used to prepare shoes, purses and the shell is used to prepare decoration pieces and jewellery. That makes it a commercially important commodity which in turn becomes vulnerable to the poachers.
Keeping in view the extinction threat faced by the marine turtles, the Sindh government initiated a marine turtle conservation project in late 1970s.
Responding to Dawn queries, project chief Dr Fahmida Firdous said whenever the wildlife staff patrolling the beach spotted a turtle laying eggs, they kept waiting till its return to the sea. They catch the turtle, tag it with identification number, collect the eggs from the nests, bring them to the protective enclosures, dig up a nest-hole of similar depth and bury the eggs.
When the hatchlings came out in about six to eight weeks these were brought to the beach and released at night so that the aquatic birds did not harm the helpless creatures during their crawl to the sea, she added.
She said over 7,000 turtles had been tagged so far and over two million eggs had been collected while around 700,000 hatchlings had been successfully released back into the sea.
She said the project was facing financial hurdles. The turtle population could get a boost if facilities were created to keep the hatchlings for the first year during which bulk of them died.
Dr Firdous said by and large the turtles did not migrate long distances and usually lived near the beach where they were born, however, a few of the turtles tagged by the Sindh Wildlife Department had been reported in Iran, in India and in Africa.
She urged the beach goers not leave half eaten stuff on the beach, which attracted stray dogs, and not to throw plastic bags in to the sea which could chock the marine creatures. She also urged them to avoid the turtles when they see them coming out of the water as it would disturb them and they would return without laying the eggs.
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