Students' Sea Turtle Conservation Network

SSTCN in collaboration with Indo-German centre for Sustainability, IIT Madras conducted a two day symposium on September 28th and 29th to celebrate 25 years of conservation work by SSTCN. The upcoming season will be the 25th year.
The symposium was targeted towards college students in and around Chennai. Participation was on a voluntary basis by students interested in nature. About 80 students from around 20 colleges attended the symposium over two days.
First day, 28th September
We started the day with presentations by students themselves on the topic of marine conservation. The students were briefed about this earlier. The session was for two hours and was moderated by Nityanand Jayaraman, a freelance activist and environmental journalist and teacher at the Asian college of Journalism. After listening to and watching many student presentations he gave critical feed back to them. He also explained how every choice we make in life is a political one, whether made consciously or not. He encouraged students to be aware of developments and make informed choices in their lives.
The second session of the morning was by Dr.Jayakumar of the Indo-German centre on the status of water on the coastal areas of Chennai. He had conducted this study as part of his doctoral thesis and gave valuable information on the availability of fresh water and the reason for its deterioration in various places.
This was followed by a presentation by Akila who made a presentation of Sea turtles of the world, their distribution, their roles in marine ecosystems, their current status etc and many interesting vignettes about Sea turtles.
The last presentation of the morning was by Arun who gave a quick run through of SSTCN’s work and a brief over view of the last 24 years.
We had organised a very different lunch for both the days – a full organic millet lunch, with all dishes being prepared with various millets. It was a unique experience for the students who after some initial reluctance enjoyed the meals very much and understood the ecological and nutritional importance of millets.
The main attraction of the day was the afternoon session conducted by Shekar Dattatri, the celebrated wild film maker and activist. He screened his famous “Ridley’s last stand” and followed it up with a passionate interaction session with students. In the process he shared many interesting facts about the early days of turtle conservation in Chennai which he was involved in since school days. It was very inspiring for the students to listen to a man who had dedicated his life to conserving nature from the time he was a small child. He made a very passionate plea to all to do whatever they can to save nature.
We ended the day with lime juice and peanut balls.

Second day, 29th September.
We began the day with a presentation of Marine Mammals of India by Dr.Kumaran Sathasivam. This is a topic on which there isn’t much knowledge and information. He enlightened us all on the various species found in Indian waters and also about other life forms found on shore and just off shore.
This was followed by a very lively session by photographers and bird watchers, Praveen and Murugan. They made a presentation of birds found on our coastal waters and on shores. They shared their experiences of going on boats looking for birds and it was very interesting and funny. The presentation was followed by a quiz which everyone enjoyed very much.
The third session of the morning was by Dr.Kartik Shanker, one of the founders of SSTCN who has been involved with us right through. He was also the president of the International Sea Turtle society. He told us the amazing story of sea turtle conservation in India with many fascinating never heard before stories of pioneers like Satish Bhaskar, Vijaya, Romulus Whitaker, C.S.Karr etc.
The next session was by Mr.Aurofilio from Citizens Action Network, Pondicherry who made a masterly presentation on shore formation and the impact of Sea walls. Every one present were fascinated and intrigued to hear so much new information about beaches which they had never heard of before.
After the lunch break we had Adhith Swaminathan present his tryst with turtles. Adhith has been involved with sea turtles from the time he was 11 years old. He has stayed involved with turtles and this has taken him to England to do a masters degree in marine conservation, to Costa Rica, Sri lanka, Orissa and Andaman to carry out conservation work. He shared this journey with us, with particular focus on his stay in an uninhabited Andaman island for the past few years. It was very inspiring for youngsters to listen to one who is barely older than themselves and yet has contributed so much already.
This was followed by a humorous presentation by our young volunteers on their experiences turtle walking in Marina.
The last session was an interaction among students themselves in groups on pre prepared case studies on a range of contemporary topics followed by a presentation by a representative from each group.
The last session was the valedictory with certificates given to all participants.
The symposium was a grand success and was made possible firstly by the generous collaboration of the Indo-German centre and by the hard work put in by the volunteers of SSTCN and IIT. A special thanks to Dr.Milind Brahme, professor at IIT, Rihan Najib, Ashwin, Ashish, Rathnavel, Nishanth, Aravind, Karthikeyan, Rakesh, Zainab, Maya, Vishnu, Shravan, Kartik, Prem and the others who helped.

SSTCN – Turtle season 2012

SSTCN’s turtle season of 2012 started with a very unusual problem – there was just no space on the beach near the Adyar estuary to put up the hatchery! The entire beach above the high tide line was covered in dense ipomoea plants with deep and extensive roots. Our team scouted the area around the estuary and decided on a spot and hired two men to clear the ipomoea. But at the end of two days of hard work, we realised we needed help. We had to then approach the corporation and get their permission to hire a JCB and clear a small patch of beach area off ipomoea! Only then we could set up the hatchery.

Things didn’t exactly look up after that! The first nest of the season was found only on the 10^th of January, the second after a gap of another week and so on. We had only nine nests in January while in the 2011 season we had three times that number in January alone! The only thing to rejoice about was the absence of too many dead turtles unlike previous years.

Several theories were proposed – the Thane cyclone was one while others said it was because of sun storms that interfered with the earth’s magnetic field on which turtles rely to navigate around the globe. Whatever the reason, the low nesting continued into February which is usually our peak nesting period every season. While we had 56 nests in the Besant Nagar area in 2011, we had only 27 nests in February this year. March had only 8 nests as against 16 last year. While we had 99 nests last year, we had just 44 this season.

The Marina side though kept us from completely losing heart. January yielded 15 nests which was better than the southern side of the Adyar estuary and better than last season where we barely found any nests in January. Nesting picked up in February with 30 nests as opposed to 41 in 2011. March also was comparable with another 28 nests. Last season we had 43 nests in March on the Marina side. The total number this season in Marina was 76 which was only a little less than the 85 we found in the 2011 season.

Another challenge we faced this year was an invasion by ants in some of the Marina nests. Even with liberal use of neem cake, our volunteers had to be on guard round the clock in order to ensure we didn’t lose hatchlings to these carnivorous blind ants.

What was remarkable this season was the high percentage of hatching success in both the hatcheries and particularly in the Marina side where in spite of the ant invasion, 80% of the eggs hatched successfully. The Besant Nagar side was not too far behind with about 75% success.

Although the season was disappointing and discouraging to start with, the fact that we could still manage to release 10,367 hatchlings was a big shot in the arm for our volunteers.

MAST LIGHTS BEING SWITCHED OFF DURING TURTLE HATCHLING SEASON!

Government orders mast lights to be switched off!

For more information visit:

http://iotn.org/iotn14_6.html

The April 2008 issue of Sanctuary Asia carried an article on how World-Bank assisted Casuarina shelterbelts along the coast of Tamil Nadu had been raised right up to the high tide line, eliminating sea turtle nesting habitats.

The follow up action taken by the Government was then outlined in Sanctuary Asia’s October 2008 issue. The article can be accessed using the following link.

http://www.sanctuaryasia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1338:turtles-and-casuarina-&catid=132:campaigns-archive

To view the April 2008 article, the following link can be used.

http://www.sanctuaryasia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=491:world-bank-vs-sea-turtles-trauma-in-tamil-nadu&catid=113:campaigns

As we approached the Valmiki Nagar stretch of beach, we peered towards the buildings anxiously, looking for our friends. We had already collected eggs from two turtle nests, and had more than 300 eggs between the two of us. It was 1 in the morning, and we were tired and sleepy but all of this vanished and our hearts filled with joy and affection as we saw them running towards us.

Satan and Sin, two jet black dogs with yellow eyes, fat and jolly, full of energy, meet us turtle walkers on most nights and walk with us till the hatchery. In a world of relationships based on give and take, this beautiful friendship is based on nothing material. They expect nothing from us, and most of the time we have nothing to give, except some warm hugs and of course, our company. And what’s most amazing, is that we aren’t the same people walking everyday. Almost everyday, a different pair of SSTCN members walks. Satan and Sin bear the same good cheer, and it is beautifully unconditional.

They often come by themselves and and sometimes bring other friends along. They play the entire way, often taking quick baths in the sea. These must be the cleanest dogs, with a bath every hour! Incidentally, they never harm the turtles, or the turtle eggs. They sleep with us in the hatchery and walk with us up till the bus stop. After putting us into the bus, they walk back to their daytime area.

Those of you who understand dogs will understand that by walking 5 kilometres with us, they cross hundreds of other dog territories, but our friends have never confronted any other dogs, and whenever confronted, have always maintained a dignified prescence.

This brings us to Inji, our former president, as we’d like to think of him. Inji used to walk with us everyday, unfailingly, from Besant Nagar to Neelankarai. We named him after Niranjan, a passionate turtle walker who died in the Himalayas. Inji walked with us from January to March, and then as the turtle nesting season drew to a close and it was time for us to go directly to the hatchery to release hatchlings, he would walk alone all the way. That was truly fascinating for a lone dog to do; walk all the way from Besant Nagar to Neelankarai, crossing all the kuppams (fishing villages) with their territorial dogs.

Then, by mid-April, Inji decided that he would shift base, and moved to the hatchery. This brought about a complete change in his character. He was, till then, a pig-nosed, dreamy, friendly dog but once he found a home, he turned territorial and would guard it fiercely. We changed his name to Inji Pratap Singh and as his power and domination grew, Thakur Inji Pratap Singh!

Unfortunately, the season got over and it was time to pull down the hatchery. After that, Inji became really upset and bad tempered, and on one occasion bit a boy from the kuppam who teased him. We paid for the boy’s treatment, but from that day on, our friend was a marked dog. We tried bringing him to Besant Nagar with us, but he would always run back. We made arrangements for him to be fed, and often went to check up on him, but one day he just disappeared. In a world of spite, one can definitely imagine what must have happened. After this, we posthumously made Inji the President of SSTCN.