More than 1,100 dead sea turtles washed up along southern India’s coastline The mass death of once-endangered olive ridley turtles in January has prompted an increase in wildlife patrols and a crackdown on fishing boats.
If that were the case, Sivakumar said, it was difficult to say whether the turtles got caught in fishing nets near Chennai or further away, then ended up off Chennai due to winds or currents.
Typically, between 100 and 150 turtles nest on Chennai’s beaches annually, so the stranding of more than 1,000 turtles is surprising, Sivakumar said.
“I never heard [of] such large numbers of turtles stranded at any beaches of Tamil Nadu at least in the last three decades,” Kuppusamy Sivakumar, an ecology professor at Pondicherry University said.
Chennai resident Rajiv Rai said he had spotted about 80 dead turtles on a 2km (1.24 mile) stretch of beach near his home.
