In 1974, a Scottish biologist on a crocodile survey in Odisha heard that large numbers of olive ridley turtles nested at a beach called Gahirmatha. Robert Bustard visited the site the following year with his students and they witnessed an arribada with over 150,000 turtles. BC Choudhury recalls that they walked up on down with hurricane lamps and marked thousands of turtles with paint while counting them. The late Chandrasekhar Kar would go on to study ridleys in Gahirmatha for his PhD and discover a second mass nesting beach at Devi River Mouth. In the 1990s, Bivash Pandav conducted surveys of the entire coast and discovered a third beach at Rushikulya in the south. Bivash would also carry out his PhD on offshore and nesting populations of olive ridleys in Odisha.
In 1999, inspired by Brian Bowens research on the global phylogeography of several species of sea turtles, I joined BC Choudhury as a postdoctoral fellow at the Wildlife Institute of India to study ridley genetics in Odisha. I joined Bivash in the field and collected samples from all the mass nesting sites, and finally got to witness an arribada in Gahirmatha in March 1999. Of course, I was at Rushikulya when mass nesting started and traveled two days non-stop by jeep and bike and boat to get to the beach. Bivash and I carried out a census and estimated about 180,000 turtles during the arribada. My genetic analysis at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) subsequently showed that ridleys on the east coast of India are ancestral to global populations of olive ridleys (see paper).
We set up a monitoring programme for ridleys at Rushikulya in 2007 and collect data on offshore populations, solitary and mass nesting censuses, mortality, hatching success, temperatures and sex ratios and effects of lighting. We have also been involved in conservation projects that bring local groups together (through the Orissa Marine Resources Conservation Consortium) and assessments of eco-tourism as a livelihood option for local communities.
In 1999, inspired by Brian Bowens research on the global phylogeography of several species of sea turtles, I joined BC Choudhury as a postdoctoral fellow at the Wildlife Institute of India to study ridley genetics in Odisha. I joined Bivash in the field and collected samples from all the mass nesting sites, and finally got to witness an arribada in Gahirmatha in March 1999. Of course, I was at Rushikulya when mass nesting started and traveled two days non-stop by jeep and bike and boat to get to the beach. Bivash and I carried out a census and estimated about 180,000 turtles during the arribada. My genetic analysis at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) subsequently showed that ridleys on the east coast of India are ancestral to global populations of olive ridleys (see paper).
We set up a monitoring programme for ridleys at Rushikulya in 2007 and collect data on offshore populations, solitary and mass nesting censuses, mortality, hatching success, temperatures and sex ratios and effects of lighting. We have also been involved in conservation projects that bring local groups together (through the Orissa Marine Resources Conservation Consortium) and assessments of eco-tourism as a livelihood option for local communities.