Students’ Sea Turtle Conservation Network

5000 Hatchlings Released, 65 nests

Short Season

This turtle season has been different in some aspects. Nesting started in January and peaked in February with nesting happening in a rush in the latter half of the month. Suddenly and quite abruptly, nesting came to a complete halt in March.

Turtles have survived more than 180 million years probably due to their ability to adapt to changing conditions. As temperatures rise due to global warming, one likes to assume that turtles are timing their nesting to beat the heat and ensure greater hatching success.

Fewer Dead Turtles

Compared to 30 to 50 adult turtles we come across each year, this year we had less than 10. The reason for this is unclear, but it is something to rejoice about nevertheless.

Ant Problem

Another unusual occurrence this season was the relentless attack by a species of predatory red ants. Possibly due to the large quantities of garbage on the beach, some of which is buried in the sand, these ants breed under the surface and attack the hatchlings as they emerge from their eggs. SSTCN volunteers kept monitoring round the clock, and after some experimenting with different materials, discovered that neem cake helped repel these ants to some extent. The problem was thus largely brought under control, quite early in the season.

New Volunteers

As it always happens, we had new volunteers join us this year too. This is really important and immensely useful particularly the weekday volunteers. Thank you Samsher, Anupam, Aravind, Raja, Bharat, Sandeep …

Our regulars like Saravanan, Karunakaran, Abhi N, Hopeland, Akshay, Joseph Raja, Lakshmi, Raghu, Shravan, Arvind, Dhaval, Shiva, Siddharth, Rishab, Vaibhav, Dheeraj, were great as usual.