Turtle Walk, Chennai

Most of the chennaites must be familiar with the endangered Olive Ridley Turtles. SSTCN [Students of Sea Turtles Conservation Network] does a phenomenal job of walking along the shore from Neelangarai to Besant Nagar every night between 11pm and 5am during the nesting season of January to March looking for turtle nests. Since there are many threats, the eggs are carefully dug out of the nest and incubated in the man-made hatchery where the natural conditions are simulated. Once they hatch in around 45 days, the hatchlings are let into the sea.

 

This is the second time I’m taking this walk. During my earlier walk a few years ago, we were fortunate enough to find a nest with 220 eggs. In my second walk last week, we couldn’t find any nests… but we spotted three dead turtles which were apparently drowned by fishing nets and washed ashore. Our walk started just past midnight at Neelangarai and when we reached Besant Nagar, it was past 4am. The volunteers let some hatchlings into the sea and we were privileged to be a part of that. Walking along the shore in the moonlit night with the waves washing the feet had an unparalleled beauty of its own. No words can bring out the spectacular experience we had!