Homecoming Of a Million Turtles

Dakshin ka hawa aana padega (The wind needs to blow from the south)," said Bipro in his bent Hindi. The field assistant to researchers from the Indian Institute of Science and NGO Dakshin was referring to the local wisdom that southern winds are the cue for Olive Ridley turtles to appear in numbers large enough to signify mass nesting. The event is called Arribada — a Spanish word for "arrival". Mass nesting of Olive Ridley turtles is seen at just two spots in India — both in Odisha — Rushikulya, where we were, and Gahirmatha, an island a few hundred kilometers away.

The normally quiet beach was jammed with hundreds of locals. When I crossed the barricade erected by the forest department and entered the beach, my heart stopped. The sand had disappeared under thousands of semi-circular, grey-brown domes. Each new wave carried a few hundred more turtles, left them behind on the foamy shore, and went back for more. Once beyond the tide line, the turtles went to work. There was no time to choose the perfect spot.

We watched a female crawl over another one that was busy laying eggs. She decided to nest less than a meter from the first one. Each female took less than an hour and then returned to sea. Eggs hatch in roughly 50 days, and the hatchlings scramble across the sand to submerge in the ocean. Once they are 10-15 years old, they will return to this very beach to lay eggs. How do they find their way back? How do the adults time the Arribada? Science is still seeking answers. The mass nesting continued for six nights. As I brushed sand off my camera on the last day, the wind from the south gently carried it away.