Along Tamil Nadu coast, a surge of dead sea turtles
On a sunny day in January, A. Prakash, 40, sits on a boat in Kovalam, off the East Coast Road (ECR) in Chengalpattu district of Tamil Nadu. He has just returned from a fishing trip where he saw 10 Olive Ridley sea turtle carcasses floating in the sea. “We (fisherfolk) have been seeing many such carcasses every day since the beginning of the year,” he says, perturbed.Prakash points to an elderly woman nearby, who comes to pick up a basket of tiger prawns from the boat, and says her son helps the Forest Department bury the carcasses. Placing the basket deftly on her head, Rani, 65, says, “My son just buried six and came home tired and hungry.”
In the Chennai and Chengalpattu districts, located along the 1,076 kilometre-long coastline of Tamil Nadu, many people recall seeing dead Olive Ri...