Dead green turtle washes ashore in Chennai city

CHENNAI:  A juvenile green turtle washed ashore in Kovalam on Friday evening. It had injury marks around its neck and is suspected to have got entangled in a net and drowned. The carcass measuring 71-cm long and 51-cm wide was found by K Arun and N Kannan, members of Sea Turtle Protection Force of TREE Foundation, an NGO working towards turtle conservation.

The volunteers told TNIE the swollen neck and bulging eyes are an indicators for death due to drowning. After taking necessary measurements, they buried carcass on the beach.The East Coast of India, especially offshore waters of Tamil Nadu are important foraging grounds for the green turtles. They are the largest of all hard shelled turtles, and second largest of all turtles after the Leatherback turtle. Since, the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay are rich in seagrass beds, green turtles forage along the coast, while they nest along Andaman and Nicobar coast. 

Even in the past, there were instances of green turtles washing ashore. The last incident was reported at Periya Neelankarai in February 2016. A green turtle that got entangled in a fishing net was rescued and rehabilitated for two months before being released. In 2015, a green turtle was found in a state of dehydration on the Marina. It was rehabilitated and released. Thiruporur forest ranger P Kalyan said not often does green turtles end up here. “The turtle could have gotten entangled in a net and drowned.”