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The conditions as well as arribada frequencies are different between Orissa and Costa Rica. There is no demand either for eggs or turtle meat here. There are no natives comparable to those in Costa Rica who traditionally harvest turtles. I have always pointed out that olive ridleys have shown a lot of wisdom in choosing Orissan coast for nesting as we oriyas (oriya speaking inhabitants of Orissa) do not eat turtle eggs or meat perhaps because of the Vaishnavite (people worshipping Lord Vishnu) tradition where the sea turtle is revered as Kurma, the turtle incarnation of Vishnu. Before ban on turtle harvesting for conservation, the turtles were caught and eggs were collected by the opportunistic local fishermen for transport to Calcutta market as bengalees (Bengali speaking inhabitants of Bengal) are very fond of turtle meat. Those days are gone when the local fishermen could exploit the seasonal arrival of turtles and nesting in predictable area and time. The nesting grounds were extensive allowing for collection of boatloads of eggs in Bhitar Kanika by paying a tax of Rupees 15 per boat! I have already reported about almost a 100 km nesting area in Kanika described by Hamilton in 1708 (Mohanty Hejmadi, 2000). Astronomical number of turtles must have nested some 300 years back! Now only about 2-3 km are suitable for the nesting in the region. At present, the question of local people benefiting from legal turtle or egg harvest does not arise in Orissa. When it comes to protein we are notorious for not eating a large variety of edible fauna. We export shark fins, clams, snails, cuttlefish etc. but do not eat them. Whatever cannot be sold is discarded irrespective of the food value. The psychology of eating takes precedence over practical solutions like protein supplements etc. People will starve to death but not change their feeding habits! This is culture specific.

The unpredictability of nesting time,site, and period from year to year has made management planning difficult. Any kind of economic exploitation as suggested by him is also not possible. There is enough evidence that the turtles consider the whole of Orissan coast suitable for nesting and may nest in one area followed by another in the following year. This has baffled us because; they do gather to mate off the coast in the predictable area and time in November and December but may chose to nest in any of the month from January to April. To cope with this situation a regular hatchery program is run in the most suitable place each year by the forest department. I would like to place on record that the methodologies were standardized in a joint project run by me and the forest department (with direct involvement of Chandrasekhar Kar who has been working with the olive ridleys since their declaration as a protected species in 1975); with a generous grant from DRDO with the intervention of Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam who was then heading our missile program in Wheeler Island close to Gahirmatha nesting ground. (Dr. Kalam later became the President of India). Chandrasekhar successfully utilized the agricultural nettings allowing different amounts of sunlight to set up different temperature regimes to take care of the sex ratio (unpublished results). Every year, such hatcheries are established in areas where there are indications of maximum beach erosion and therefore, loss of eggs. This is an alternative to the suggestions of Dr. Mrosovsky’s to adapt to our unpredictable olive ridleys!

MOHANTY HEJMADI, P. 2000. Earliest record of Gahirmatha turtles. Marine Turtle Newsletter 88:11-12.
MROSOVSKY, N. 2008. Continuing controversy over ridleys in Orissa: Cui bono? Marine Turtle Newsletter 121:13-15.

Priyambada Mohanty Hejmadi
GM-8, VSS Nagar, Bhubaneswar 751007, Orissa, India (E-mail: mohantyhejmadi@hotmail.com)