Daily Times

KARACHI: The first-ever migration and nesting of olive ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) will now be monitored through satellite tracking as currently they are no more visiting Pakistan coast, Daily Times has learnt.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Pakistan has planned to install satellite tracking for the species and is likely to start in next fiscal year. The WWF conducted similar satellite tracking in 2010 for green turtles in Jeewani, Balochistan.

“Marine turtles spend most of their time in the ocean, only coming to the shore to nest. We still know very little about their migration patterns”, said Moazzam Khan, Technical Adviser Marine Fisheries, WWF-Pakistan.

According to Khan, knowledge of marine turtle migration pathways is also important to reduce interaction with fisheries, when turtles often become victims of by-catch.

He said satellite tracking involves attaching a special piece of equipment to a marine turtle’s shell adding that the transmitter sends a message to a satellite each time the turtle comes to the surface to breathe. He said, “We then know the location of the turtle and plot it onto a map.”

Khan said satellite tracking is one way of filling the knowledge gap, allowing researchers to track marine turtles as they swim from place to place adding that the information collected from the tags helps us to design better management strategies for their conservation, such as creating marine protected areas for important feeding areas or addressing threats to nesting beaches.

While talking to Daily Times Khan said, “Hopefully it would start sometime after July. We are in negotiations with tracking companies. Till now nothing has been finalized.” He said green turtles is most common species found along the coast of Pakistan and their females species visit sandy beaches along Pakistani coast including Sandspit, Hawks bay, Cape Monz, Sonmiani, Ormara, Astola Island, Daran and Jiwani.

The olive ridley turtles used to frequently visit Pakistani beaches but no nesting of olive ridley was reported from Pakistan during last 13 years. It is estimated that the population of olive ridley turtle is almost six times higher than that of green turtles. He informed, “Initially we would start from five species of olive ridley turtle. The process would be done with live turtles based on their existence.”

As per reports, the time period could vary from six months to one year for data collection of the monitoring. He said we have not fixed the time period adding that the device is attached to animal’s body and this is to avoid load on the animal.