Leatherback spotted on TN coast after 39 years

CHENNAI: P Sreeni and M Prabhu, fishermen from Kovalam village, had their once-in-a-lifetime experience on Sunday as they undertook their daily sail into the sea and cast the net five km offshore. They heard a loud continuous flap sound at a distance. Upon checking, they found a giant Leatherback turtle, the largest of living sea turtles growing up to two metres and weighing 900 kg. The turtle was struggling to free itself from a discharged fishing net.  

“We have never seen such a large turtle so close to the shore. Its head was double the size of my head. Initially, we were scared to approach. But later, we decided to help. It was so huge that we found it difficult to even move it. It took us nearly two hours to free it. While we were cutting the net, the turtle was just watching us and cooperating as though it knew we were helping him. It was an experience of a lifetime,” Sreeni told TNIE.  

TREE Foundation founder Supraja Dharani, who is into turtle conservation in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh for over two decades, said Leatherback turtles are found only in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where they come for nesting, in India. “This is a very rare sighting. Based on the description given by the fishermen, it was a fully-grown male Leatherback turtle which makes the sighting even more special.”

Leatherbacks have been observed by commercial fishermen in the offshore waters of Chennai and Kancheepuram waters beyond 20 nautical miles. One live sub-adult Leatherback entangled in a ghost net four km offshore from Neelankarai coast in 2017 and another 8 km offshore in 2017 were recorded by the Neelankarai fishing village. These two sub-adult turtles were released from the nets by TREE Foundations Sea Turtle Protection Force members from Periya Neelankarai fishing village. The only available record of Leatherback turtle sighting on the TN coast was back on March 28, 1982, in Kovalam. But, it was a female one that washed ashore dead. 

After freeing the turtle, the fishermen brought back the ghost net weighing 10 kg to the shore and handed it over to the TREE Foundation, an NGO which incentivised the ghost nets collection with the help of the HCL Foundation. Supraja said in July, the fishermen from Chennai, Chengalpet, and Kancheepuram retrieved 14,000 kg of ghost nets. “As a token of appreciation, fishermen are paid Rs 5 per kg.”