Five species of the sea turtles, Lepidochelys olivacea

(Olive ridley turtle), Chelonia mydas (Green

turtle) Eretemochelys tmbricata (Hawksbill turtle),

Caretta caretta (Loggerhead turtle) and Dermochelys

coriacea (Leatherback turtle) are foimd along the

coasts of India including Lakshadweep, Andaman and

Nicobar Islands

Pillai, S Krishna

CMFRI Digital Repository

iH^-d H:/!.'} Mil mi MARINE FISHERIES INFORMATION SERVICE 1947-1996 No, ln7 , . . T T ^ TECHNICAL AND b I c l c H i EXTENSION SERIES ^ r s ^ ^ ^^^ mVrh^^ CENTRAL MARINE FISHERIES 3T5^STr=TlT?«rFT RESEARCH INSTITUTE ^ ' ^ F T , iTTTrT COCHIN, INDIA INDIAN COUNCIL OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH 875 On the laadiiig of an olive ridley turtle i t Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu and updated record of incidental catches of sea turtles in India S. Krishna PiUai Vizhinjam Research Centre ofCMFRI, Viz-hinjam - 695 521, India Introduction Five species of the sea turtles, Lepidochelys oli-vacea (Olive ridley turtle), Chelonia my das (Green turtle) Eretemochelys tmbricata (Hawksblll turtle), Caretta caretta (Loggerhead turtle) and Dermochebjs coriacea (Leatherback turtle) are foimd along the coasts of India including Lakshadweep, Andaman ana Nicobar Islands. In India directed olive ridely fishery existed In Orissa and West Bengal during the 'arri-bada' and green turtle fishery in Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay in Tamil Nadu. However, fishing and trading of turtles were totally stopped In the early 1980 in Tcunll Nadu and in 1983 in Orissa and declared turtles as endangered species. Since then turtles were landed as Incidental catch of different gear along the Indian coasts in the fishing operations. Recently, an account of incidental catch of the sea turtles has been publi-shed by Rajagopalan etoL. (1996). The turtle landed at Kanyakumari A female turtle was caught in a gill net operated off Kanyakumari, on 24.8.'96 which was identified as Lepi-dochelys olivacea (Fig.l). The morphometric measure-ments (in cm) of the olive Jjl^ely are presented below. Fig.l. Lepidochelys olivacea landed at Kanyakumari. Total length Carapace length Carapace width Plastron length Plastron width Head length Front flipper length Front flipper width Hind flipper length Hind flipper width 79 60 62 43 33 19 33 8 24 8 Earlier reports of incidental catches of sea turtles Incidental catch of sea turtles by the fishing gear like trawl and giUnet, the use of which has Increased during the last one decade, is a major problem. The reported Incidental catches so far reported are given in Table 1. Unfortunately no report about the accidental TABLE i. Earlier reports oj accidental catches oj different species oj sea turtles in India ^ 1 « f t r I » **• «i A f t ft < 0 £. a 8 0 f 0 n 00 D a t e 2-9-1981 28-3-1985 5-4-1985 1-4-1984 18-9-1984 13-12-1985 19-4-1984 1-4-1985 7-1-1988 9-1-1988 3-7-1988 14-2-1988 14-2-1988 18-4-1988 19-4-1988 3-5-1991 3-8-1991 10-3-1991 20-4-1994 27-11-1995 2-5-1996 24-8-1996 3-2-1997 21-2-1997 P lace Bombay Kovedam, Madras Mai van Bombay Bombay Ratnagtri Bombay Malvan Pamban Pamban Mandapam Rameswaram Pamban Ratnagiri Ratnagiri Ratnagiri Kolachal RameswEiram Thondi Ratnagiri Janj i ra Murud Kanyakumari West Bengal West Bengal S p e c i e s OR 1 1 7 6 1 3 3 2 1 1 GT 1 1 -LB 1 1 1 1 1 -HB 1 -1 1 1 LH -2 1 To ta l 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 6 1 1 1 3 3 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 S e x F F M M F M F NK NK NK M F NK NK 60.0 M(l) NK(2) F F NK NK NK F M&F M M e a s u r e m e n t s (cm) CL 78.3 -149.8 63.0 75.0 51.2 66 .5 149.8 61.01 70.01 152.0 162.0 67.0 57.0 -68.5 173.2 174.0 45 .0 64.0 71.0 60.0 83.0 83.0 CW 61.3 -109.0 60.0 59.0 44.9 56.8 109.8 51.2 47.2 81.0 86.0 56.0 ---132.4 120.0 -60.0 52.0 62.0 58.0 53.0 58.0 PL 43 .8 -142.0 50.5 52.0 -51.2 142.5 --144.5 151.0 51.0 ---154.7 ---57.0 43 .0 --PW --72.5 48.0 49.1 -47.2 72.5 --83.0 51.0 48.5 ---86.0 ---57.0 33.0 _ -w e i g h t 80 Kg -100 kg 4 8 Kg 55 Kg 38 Kg 4 3 Kg ---260 Kg 300 Kg ----250 Kg 350 Kg -30 Kg 56 Kg -70 Kg 75 Kg G e a r GN -GN TN TN TN BN GN TN TN GN TN TN TN GN BN BS TN -H&L -GN --S T R -1 ----------------1 -1 -2 1 R e f e r e n c e s Karbhari 1981 Rajagopalan 1983 Karbhar i etaL 1986 - d o -- d o -- d o -- d o -Karbhari 1985 Kas ina than 1988 - d o -Rao etoL 1989 Pillai etaL 1989 - d o -Katkar 1989 Jayadev, S. Hotagi 1992 Ebenezer & Joel 1992 Kllai at aL 1995 Ganapa thy 1994 Katkar 1996 J a d h a v 1996 Present observation Swapan Kumar Kar 1997 -do-OR : Olive ridley, GT : Green turtle, LB : Leather back H.B. PL : Plastron length, PW : Palstron width: GN : Gillnet, T N. M : Male, F : Female, NK : Not known. Hawksbill: C L : Carapace Length, CW : Carapace width : Trawlnet. BN : Bagnet, BS : Boat seine; STR : Stranded. TABLE l. Reported incidental catch of turtles in different states (in nos and %) Place Tamil Nadu Pamban Rameswaram Mandapam Thondi Madras Kanyakumari Maharashtra Flatnagiri Bombay Malvan West Bengal Dlgha Mohana No. of turtle 14 2 1 1 1 2 11 3 2 2 1 Percentage 66.6 9.5 4.8 4.8 4.8 9,5 68.5 19.0 12.5 66.3 33.3 catches of tur t les In Kerala and Andhra have been reported. Yearwise (1983-'92) statist ics of incidental catches of adul t olive ridley in Gahi rmatha Orissa have been reported by Rajagopalan et al. (1996). From Table 1 it is seen tha t olive ridley the mos t a b u n d a n t species in India formed 65 % of turt le lan-dings follow^ed by leather back turt le , popularly known as eluvari ammaV or thoni ammai in Tamil. This is the rarest, and the largest sea turt le in India and occupied the second place (17.5 %) In the incidental ca tches . The green tur t le Chelonia mydas called 'peramai' in Tamil and found in Tuticorin and Gulf of Manner is herbivorous and is highly priced. It formed 5 % of the incidental ca tches . Turtle meat , oils and shells were exported to different countr ies in the past . Hawksbill turtles a comparitively small sized turt les is less a b u n -dan t in the Indian waters compared with o thers . Its flesh is reported to be poisonous in Punnaikayal , Mana-pad, Tuticorin, Kanyakumar i and Sakth ikulangara areas . It formed 5 % of the incidental catches . The log-ger head is characterised by a large head in relation to body size. It formed 7.5 % in the incidental catches . Gearwlse i n c i d e n t a l c a t c h Among the reported incidental ca tches , 45 % of the sea turt les were caught in trawlers, followed by glU-net 20 % (Table 2). In M a h a r a s h t r a tur t les were caugh t accidentaly mostly in 'dol' ne t and formed 12.5 %, and in hooks cmd line and boat seines they occupied 12,5 % a n d 2 .5 % respectively. The s t randed speci-m e n s formed 15 % . On two occasions the incidently caught tur t les were released back into the sea (Jayadev, 1992). Among the reported incidental catches 52.5 % were reported from Tamil Nadu, 40 % from Maha-r a s h t r a and 7.5 % from West Bengal. Of the reported cases in Tamil Nadu 80.9 % were reported in Pamban and nearby a r ea s and in Maharash t ra 68.5 % were reported from Ratnagri . Sex In the reported incidental catch (Table 2) the females and males formed 22.5 and 17.5 % respective-ly. In 60 % of the reported ins tances the sex was not ment ioned. References Ganapathy, A, 1994. On a hawksbill turtle washed ashore near Thondi ailong Palk Bay coast of Tamil Nadu. Mar Flshlnfor. Serv.. T&ESer.. No. 133, p 19. Jadhav, D.G. 1996. On an olive ridley turtle stranded at Janjl-ra Murud coast, Maharashtra. Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv., T& ESer.. No. 145. P. 17. Jayadev, S. Hotagl 1992. On a marine turtle Lepidochelys oli-vacea landed at Bassealn KolUwada In Maharashtra. Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv., T&ESer., No. 118, p. 19. Ebenezer, I.P., Jacob Jerold Joel 1992. On the landing of a lea-ther back turtle. Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv.. T&E Ser.. No. 118, p. 20. Karbharl, J.P. 1981. On the rare occurrence of a giant sized hawksbill turtle off Elephanta Caves (near Bombay) Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv.. T&£ Ser., No. 22, p. 17. Karbharl, J.P. 1985. Leather-back turtle caught oiT Devbag, Malvan. Mar. Fish Infor. Serv., T&E Ser., No. 64, p. 23. Karbharl, J.P., A. Prosper, C.J. Josekutty and J.R. Dlas 1986. Some observations on marine turtles landed along Maha-rashtra coast. Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv., T&£ Ser., No. 70, p. 20-21. Katkar, B.N. 1989. On olive ridley turtles landed along Maha-rashtra coast. Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv., T&E Ser., No. 70, p. 20-21. Katkar, B.N. 1989. On olive rldely turtles landed along the Rat-nagirl coast. Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv.. T&E Ser., No. 95, p 9. Katkar, B.N. 1996. Turtles and whale shark landed along Rat-nagirl coast, Maharashtra, Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv., T&E, Ser., No. 141, p. 20. Kasinathan, C. 1988. Olive rldleys landed at Pamban reported. Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv., T&E Ser., No. 84, p. 10. V i s i t M a r i n e A q u a r i u m a t CMOfRI . R e s e a r c h Centra* V i x h l n j a m i n Trlvandbrum. K e r a l a KnJ|<>y t l i e Sp'eotaciitt^ar X7nid(dmrat<er W o n d e r s 19 Krishna PlUal, S., M. Badrudeen and M. Bose 1989. On two species of marine turtles caught off Dhanushkodi, Gulf of Mannar. Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv., T&BSer.. No. 102, p. 17-18. Krishna Filial, S., M. Badrudeen and M. Bose 1995. On a lea-ther back turtle Dermochelys coriacea landed at Rameswa-ram. Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv., T&ESen, No. 140, p. 11. Rajagopalan M. E., Vlvekanandan, S. Krishna Pillai, M. Sri-nath and BasUan Fernando 1996. Incidental catch of the sea turtles in India. Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv., T&E Ser. No. 143, p. 8-16. Rao. P.V. et aL 1989. On a leather back turtle Dermochelys coriacea washed ashore at Kovalam. Mar. Fish. Irifor. Serv., T & B Ser., No. 95, p. 9. Swapan Kumar Kar 1997. On three dead turtles (Carettacaret-ta} stranded at Dighha, Midnapur district. West Bengal. Mar. Fish. Infor. Serv., T&E Ser., No. 149, p. 16. Visit Marine Aquarium at C^^RX Keaearcb Centre, yM|1li»Vl<!i»" M* Xr|vAn<}rum, Kerala ^n Enjoy the Spectagular Uaiiexwa,i;pr Ijrqmtera. ^ 

On the landing of an olive ridley

turtle at Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu

and updated record of incidental

catches of sea turtles in India

http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/4976/1/Article_06.pdf

On the landing of an olive ridley turtle at Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu and updated record of incidental catches of sea turtles in India

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