Gahirmatha Arribada : nesting season of 2008-09

Dear Members,,

we just got the news that the first wave of arribada happened saturday night, and according to forest dept sources 75000 turtles have nested. The details are not very clear but initial reports suggest that nesting happened in Nasi I

Last year when arribada didnt happen many voices were raised on dredging of dhamra port having affected turtles, while the truth is average reproductive effort of a female olive ridley is 4 years, i.e. in other words a female turtle comes to nest once only in 4 years, it takes that much time for the egg folicles to develop and make the pan-oceanic trip worthwhile for the females,, while the males do come to mate every year, so if arribada has not happened doesnt mean that the dredging of last year and this year caused some disturbances,, it would have been something which took place 4 years ago,,, and the fact is arribada didnt take place in many instances since the discovery of arribada in the 1970s ( Bustard, 1976 : World's largest sea turtle rookery? Tigerpaper 3: 25)
and these years are 1982, 1988, 1997, 1998 and 2002. (Kartik Shanker et. al. Biological Conservation 115 (2003) 149-160) was the dhamra dredging happening then??

Amlan