Sea Turtles: The most extraordinary species close to extinction?

Sea turtle is one of the species which have become endangered of late. In fact, some of their genes are close to extinction. Turtle is an extraordinary organism; they can live in both sea and on land, have a diverse diet i: we can eat, fish, plankton, or other small organisms, are incredibly fast swimmers, live for hundreds of years, can hold a breath for several minutes and so on.

Turtles have existed since the age of Dinosaurs, survived the ice age and major natural calamities. In spite of their adaptations and survival skills human exploitation has led to downfall in their population. The first major setback to the population of many aquatic animals, including turtles, was the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. This was because during the months of December, large number of turtles comes to breed in the tropical region of the Indian Ocean. Apart from that loss of turtle population has been attributed to consumption of plastic dumped in the ocean and poaching for turtle consumption.

Thus, many South and South East Asian countries have begun Turtle conservation projects. Stern laws against illegal hunting, shipping and transportation have been implemented. One of the licensed Conservation Project is Turtle Hatchery.

These hatcheries both collect and purchase turtle eggs from fisherman. They isolate them in sand and wait for them to hatch. Hatching period varies between 75 to 90 days. 95% of turtles born are male. Lower number of females is one of the causes of slow increase in population. Male turtles are released into the ocean 2 days after hatching. However, since the female are fewer, they are retained up to maximum 4 years so that they become big and strong enough to counter the Ocean.

Turtle are kept in open tanks and fed fresh fish twice a day. Males and females are easily distinguishable among turtles. Males have a tail while females don’t. Since females are retained longer it has been observed that they lay eggs near the coast they were released. It is believed that it is the gratitude of turtles.

In many cases it has been shown by animals that they share a bond with humans, yet on our part we exploit them instead of showing gratitude.

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