Enayam Port

Tamil Research Institute
RAPID TECHNO-ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY REPORT FOR
DEVELOPMENT OF COLACHEL PORT AT TAMILNADU
FINAL REPORT
marine prairie). The nesting period starts from October and last up to December end. The turtle start coming to
the coast 20.00 hours continue until about 5.00 hours and maximum animal visit the beach during midnight.
Rarely during the day time also the turtles visit the beach for nesting. They make nests much above the highest
high tide level and scrap out sand to make the egg pit. They dig up to 50 cm depth for egg pit. Nesting
behaviour in Kanyakumari is described by Mohan (1986).
Turtle fishing was practised in this region for ages and chelonians were exported to Sri Lanka and other countries
until a couple of decades ago. Prior to 1972, there was legal live turtle trade between India and Sri Lanka.
Today there are seven species of marine turtles in the world. Although Kar and Bhaskar (1982) had reported the
nesting of four species of sea turtles in Tamil Nadu (Chelonia mydas - green turtle; Eretmochelys imbricata -
hawksbill; Lepidochelys olivacea - olive ridley; Caretta caretta - Loggerhead turtle) latest records indicate the
nesting of only olive ridleys along the Tamil Nadu coast (Bhupathy and Saravanan 2006).
Nowadays sea turtle populations in this area have been reported to have declined due to their overexploitation
for trade and from accidental drowning in fishing gear such as gillnets and trawlers Anti sea erosion measures
affects the nesting beaches of marine turtles
Three most important nesting locations of olive ridleys were identified by Bhupathy and Saravanan (2006) in the
GOI-UNDP 2000-2001 survey along the Tamil Nadu coast. This nesting sites are: Chennai, Mamallapuram -
Pondicherry and Nagapattinam.
For Kanuakumari district based on different authors, mainly on Mohan (1998), in the 80´s decade it was
estimated that on an average of about 4,000 turtles landed every year in the 73 km stretch of Kanyakumari
coast. In 90´s there was a sudden drop in the annual landing and was estimated to be 1,000 turtles/year. For
this author the sudden drop of turtles visiting this coast is due to the construction of sea wall and depletion of
population.
CP1832-FR-AX-05-CP-Initial Environmental Examination-Ed4.docx AX05 - 43
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