Endangered olive ridley turtle found dead on Gwadar coast

GWADAR: An  endangered species of sea turtle was found dead on the eastern coast of Gwadar approximately two days back. However, the provincial marine department remains unaware about the situation to date.

According to experts, unusual human intervention on the beaches, illegal use of net hunting and prohibited trolling has made life extremely difficult for water creatures in the recent times.

As a result, it is feared that the dead olive ridley may have suffered from an accident while searching for food near the coastal area.

Unfortunately, the marine wildlife and conservation authorities have still not taken a substantial step towards the issue, reported Gwadar-based journalist Sajid Baloch.

Olive Ridley, also described as Lepidochelys olivacea, had been declared as the vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and is on the organization’s red list of threatened species.

Speaking to The News, Umair Shahid, WWF-Pak marine expert, identifying reasons for the death of these endangered species, said, “The turtle may have been released from fishing net after being caught. It might have floated on to the surface then and been hit by a ship. The carcass looks really old.”

“It is endangered, as all turtles are. Olive Ridleys are frequented in Arabian Sea in good numbers, but we have not seen it nesting on Pakistani beaches.”

He added that these turtles nest in Oman, Western coast of Iran, Sri lanka, and in Indian state Orissa, where some 200,000 Olive Ridleys nest simultaneously during a specific time.

“Of course it makes us worry because the Olive Ridleys are dominantly caught in gillnets and their survival post-release could be very low.”

Shahid also stressed the need to robustly monitor illegal net catching in order to provide necessary tools to mitigate the threats of by-catch and ship strikes.