Indian turtles make annual nesting trip in hundreds of thousands

Thousands upon thousands of the world’s smallest sea turtle, the Olive Ridley, made their annual nesting migration to the Rushikulya river mouth in eastern India’s Ganjam district on Wednesday.

Up to 600,000 females make the same trip every year during the final weeks of February until early March so they can lay their eggs at the very same beach where they hatched themselves.

Despite being the most abundant sea turtle in the world, the Olive Ridleys’ numbers are in decline and they have been listed as ‘threatened’ due to human activities on their migratory routes.