Marine Turtles have been threatened with extinction in all parts of the world due to the harvesting of Marine Turtles and their eggs and other accidental mortality.

• Marine turtle conservation was started on 1st October 2002 by SNM.
• First year SNM protected 50 nests of Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) and released 2734 hatchlings at Velas in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra.
• In last few years we have protected more than 800 nests and successfully released more than 35,000 hatchlings into the sea
• In the fourth year of the project, SNM arranged protection work in 15 villages but found only 36 nests against 50 in one village. These figures themselves can prove that the marine turtle is crossing the upper limits of its presently endangered status very rapidly…

Life cycle of marine turtle

• The entire life cycle of marine turtle still remains a mystery. Once their hatchlings enter the sea, upon maturity, only female turtles visit the coastline for breeding, and that too for a couple of hours only.
• Turtles leave identifying marks in the sand, when they arrive to the shore and return to the sea. Tracks 2 to 2.5 feet wide appear on the sand when the turtle crawls.
• Male turtles never visit the seashore. Turtle’s long life span and ability to migrate a few hundred thousand kilometres makes it difficult for researchers to study marine turtles.

Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra (SNM) started Marine turtle conservation first time in Maharashtra. In the year 2002 SNM started actual protection work for Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) in Velas, a tiny village on northernmost boundary of district Ratnagiri. In the first year SNM undertook protection work in one village and successfully protected 50 nests. Within a short span of time SNM spread the protection work to entire coast of Maharashtra state, that’s about 720 kms of coastline in all. In the forth year of the project we arranged protection work in 15 villages, but found only 36 nests against 50 in a village. These figures themselves can prove that the marine turtle is crossing the upper limits of its presently endangered status very rapidly…
SNM is trying its level best to overcome this problem with its limited resources and successfully released total of 7,610 hatchlings within four years.