Your questions answered. Each week we pick a question asked by our readers and answer them using the help of our resident experts and occasionally guest scientists and researchers eager to resolve your doubts related to the flora and fauna of India. If you have a question, send to contact@indiasendangered.com, or reach us on our social […]
Sea Turtles are Attracted to Stinky Plastic
Sea turtles around the world are threatened by marine plastic debris, mostly through ingestion and entanglement. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology have new evidence to explain why all that plastic is so dangerous for the turtles: they mistake the scent of stinky plastic for food. “We found that loggerhead sea turtles respond to […]
A Year Back Into Nature
“The extinction of wildlife would likely be caused not just by the greed of poachers, but equally by the rapacity of developers,” writes Prerna Singh Bindra in her book The Vanishing: India’s Wildlife Crisis. The year 2017 has given ample proof of both – the remorseless operations of the merchants of wildlife who will sell […]
Over 1000 Turtles and Tortoises Rescued in Bangalore from Smugglers
A group of smugglers trying to make away with 1012 exotic turtles and tortoises, valued at about Rs 4 crore in the international market were caught right on time by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials last week in Bangalore. They were trying to make their way across the state border over to Chennai and […]
Turtle Thought To Be Extinct In The Wild, Discovered In Nagaland
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the black soft shell turtle as Extinct in the Wild (EW) which means wild population of the species are no more present in the world though they could be present in captivity. It comes as a huge surprise therefore when this freshwater turtle was discovered recently […]
Image Of The Day: Let’s Start This Journey
This image of a baby Olive Ridley Turtle has been taken by GSurya. (Image copyright belongs to the photographer. Posted here directly from Flickr.) Olive Ridley turtles are known for their mass nesting called Arribada when thousands of female turtles nest at specific beaches all at once and lay eggs. India’s Gahirmata beach in Odisha […]
Why Life Isn’t A Walk On The Beach For Odisha’s Olive Ridley Turtles
A look at the many natural and man-made hurdles faced by Olive Ridley Turtles from the time their mother lays the eggs on the beaches of Odisha to adulthood. Know why, only 1 in 1000 survive to become adults. A record number of eggs have been laid on the beaches of Odisha this year by […]
School Students Clean Beaches To Welcome Turtles For Their Annual Nesting Season
It is that time of the year again when Olive Ridley turtles arrive in thousands on the beaches along the coastline of the Indian Peninsula for their annual nesting season. In an effort to provide them with a clean nesting place, over hundred students along with local volunteers got together to clean up a four […]
Man-made Flippers Give Crippled Turtle A Chance To Swim Again
When an turtle gets accidentally entangled in fishing nets, more often than not, the animal injures its flippers, the limbs that help the turtle swim. This means, that the turtle cannot move in the ocean waters to find food nor can it defend itself from a predator. The injury can easily lead to the death […]
Northern River Terrapin (Batagur baska)
www.indiasendangered.com Northern River Terrapin or Four toed Terrapin (Batagur baska) Critically Endangered (CR) on the IUCN Red List Protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, India. Included on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), making international trade in this species illegal HABITAT This terrapin is found […]
LED Lit Fishing Nets Can Save Sea Turtles
Scientists at the University of Exeter have come up with a simple and cost-effective solution to prevent sea turtles from getting caught in fishing nets. They have found that attaching green LEDs to fishing nets can help reduce the sea turtle deaths by 64 percent. The lights do not have any effect on the number […]