Sea turtle research in India: an overview with focus on identification of priority research areas

Abstract

India has a unique status of distribution of five species of sea turtles (olive ridley, green, hawksbill, leatherback and loggerhead) all along its coast line including the Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep Islands. Olive ridley has attained a novel status for the annual mass nesting along Orissa coast. Naturally, most of the work has been focused towards this species. The work pertaining to sea turtles on other species is scarce. Much work has been on stranding and nesting on the beach. The sea turtle migration to the Indian coast line is on the decline owing to many factors including beach alteration and increased fishing pressure. However, the follow-up of the earlier work to identify the factors responsible for the decline and mitigation measures is lacking. Sea turtles need to be monitored on a long-term basis with much focus on their behavioural aspects. These are vital in order to understand their behaviour in the sea and to have an effective conservation and management system. Modern tools like PTTs and data loggers could be effectively employed to study the sea turtles. The research work on sea turtles along the Indian coast line has been reviewed in order to identify and suggest the priority areas.