Hatchlings - A true emergence

Emerging life

Watching wildlife is an opportunity that not many get. Dense jungles and hours before you spot an animal walking across close to your trail van. However, spotting an Olive Ridley sea turtle in the wild and not just the adult but her entire nesting and hatchling emergence is for any Chennaiite to cherish. Beaches that are buzzing with human activity in the morning are calm nesting beaches for the Olive Ridley sea turtles. Chennai’s beaches are home to baby hatchlings of sea turtles. An opportunity to observe wildlife in its habitat amidst a sprawling city is unimaginable.

What appears as tiny black spec on the sandy beach initially, after a few minutes emerges a nostril tip. Then with a great struggle a head resembling a reptile pops out shrugging off the sand. Pushing its way through from the nest below, these hatchlings emerge after 48 to 50 days of incubation in these sandy beaches. Their mother decides upon a spot in the beach where she digs a cylindrical cavity into which 80 to 120 eggs are positioned symmetrically to ensure enough warmth and air flow for all the eggs. The mother then carefully covers the nest and camouflages it well such that predators do not attack the nest.

As we were watching tiny hatchlings emerge one after the other from the nest below, it rushes in a feel of the significance of life. The struggle was visible in the way these hatchlings were pushing their way up and the hope for survival was visible when they started crawling on the beach in search of the ocean. The ocean is the brighter horizon compared to land in the night under natural circumstances. These turtle hatchlings get attracted to the ocean owing to this and crawl towards the open sea. Artificial beach lighting acts detrimental in such cases when it redirects the hatchlings away from the ocean and they get killed due to dehydration eventually lost in open land.

These turtles have their own battle to fight in the natural environment out there, adding to their misery are human practices. We stand at a crucial juncture in protecting our sea turtles; if these turtles have to survive it is necessary that beach side citizens act more responsibly. Switching off beach property lights, ensuring clean beaches, avoiding beach parties and volunteering for turtle conservation are the basic lifestyle changes that we can bring about to see these sea turtles survive because it’s not just about us, we share this planet with them all. Our education should make a difference; let it be revisiting our human side.