Olive ridley sea turtles are endangered because of their few remaining nesting sites in the world. One of these nesting sites is the beaches around Chennai (which used to be called Madras, population over 5 million people). Around such a big city, many of the eggs are destroyed by dogs as well as humans who collect them for food. Those that survive and hatch use light cues to orient themselves to the sea but are now misled by city lights into moving towards land, and die from dehydration, exhaustion or are killed on roads.
The Students’ Sea Turtle Conservation Network ...
Olive ridley sea turtles are endangered because of their few remaining nesting sites in the world. One of these nesting sites is the beaches around Chennai (which used to be called Madras, population over 5 million people). Around such a big city, many of the eggs are destroyed by dogs as well as humans who collect them for food. Those that survive and hatch use light cues to orient themselves to the sea but are now misled by city lights into moving towards land, and die from dehydration, exhaustion or are killed on roads.
The Students’ Sea Turtle Conservation Network volunteers work hard every turtle nesting season from December to May, to ensure that every nest laid on a 15 Km stretch of beach on the Chennai coast is removed and relocated to a hatchery and then protected till the last hatchling is released into the ocean.
We are raising $1600 to cover expenses for the current nesting season. Please help if you can. Please spread the word about this appeal. Australian$ donations of over $20 are tax deductible.
SSTCN has always followed a policy of being a sustainably run conservation group. Costs are kept to a minimum. But salaries for two fishermen need to be paid for taking up the responsibility of supervising the two hatcheries round the clock for 6 months, along with getting permissions from local police stations for patrolling the beaches etc. We need to hire workers to remove construction debris and garbage and plants from the beach so hatcheries can be set up and we need to cover some repairs and maintenance costs for the hatcheries. We are estimating an expenditure of USD 1600 for the 2012-2013 turtle season.