At least 48 Olive Ridley turtles, which were tagged with metallic flipper by the Zoological Survey India (ZSI) during the 2021-23 period on the Odisha coast, returned to the Rushikulya river in Ganjam district to lay eggs in the last three days, officials said on Tuesday.
The ZSI, in collaboration with the Odisha forest department, had started to tag Olive Ridley turtles on the state coast in January 2021 to study the movements of the marine species. The second phase of the mass nesting in the Rushikulya rookery started on Saturday and a total of 1,30,031 turtles have laid eggs in the last three days, they said.