On the 6th of January, near Manta Point, Gili boat crew noticed a bunch of nets drifting in the Ocean. A closer inspection revealed a struggling olive ridley sea turtle. Amjad, Afeef and Hameed carefully hauled the mass of nets out of the water to and found that there was also a dead green turtle tangled in this net material; what a shame…
The boat crew already knew what to do; they carefully freed the live olive ridley, and brought the turtle and the nets back to Gili Lankanfushi for the Marine Biologist to inspect. The olive ridley was rather healthy, and after some measurements we released this male turtle back into the Ocean. It’s always special to release a turtle and watch it as it eagerly dives down and disappears into the blue!..
We also collected a lot of information on the nets (10 different kinds in this drifting mess) and sent it to Olive Ridley Project. Last year Gili Lankanfushi decided to start helping Olive Ridley Project, which aims to save the turtles by fighting their worst enemy – ghost nets. Turtles approach these nets looking for food, get trapped, loose limbs, and in some cases (like the green turtle) even die…
Read all about the Olive Ridley Project here http://www.oliveridleyproject.com and support their cause by donating or collecting ghost nets yourself when you are out at sea !
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| Poor green turtle! |