Turtle lays 110 eggs in daylight in St. Martin's Island
It was half-past two on 12 February afternoon. Tourists were thronging the West Beach area of St. Martin's Island. Stray dogs were roaming around. All of a sudden, a turtle appeared on rocks at the beach. Deifying all the odds, the reptile started approaching the sand and stopped near an umbrella seat, locally known as Kitkot chair.
The turtle then started digging the sand and hollowed out a two-foot hole. Then, it started laying eggs one after another. The mother turtle laid 110 eggs in one and a half hours. She then covered the hole with sand and returned to the sea at around 4:00pm.
Officials at the environment department said mother turtle usually lays eggs in a noise free atmosphere at night. It is rear turtle lays eggs in daylight and no one has noticed such a thing for over a decade. And, it was an olive redly turtle that laid eggs on that day.
Several people witnessed the scenario of the reptile laying eggs from a safe distance for two and a half hours. Some of them capture pictures or recorded video in their mobile phones. Businessperson Nurul Hasan from Chattogram’s Fakitchhari recorded video of it.
He said, “Though we could not feel the pain of the mother turtle, it was really an amusing scene. We created a situation for the turtle to lay eggs otherwise many dogs roaming nearby would eat those.”
According to the local volunteers, once the St. Martin's Island was a safe haven for turtles to lay eggs but this is no longer the case. Many mother turtles died after being caught in the fishing net when they come ashore to lay eggs. Some turtles manage to reach the beach avoiding the fishing net but finally they could not make it. Many turtles died in the attack by stray dogs. Besides, tourists and other people create noise at the beach all the time, destroying the atmosphere that turtles require to lay eggs.
Witness Ayach Uddin, 23, who is a local volunteer of the environment department, said he has been collecting turtle eggs in the St. Martin’s Island for nine years. He collected about 12,000 eggs of more than 1,250 turtles during this period.
Turtle could not be seen laying eggs on the noisy beach during daylight. Perhaps, the mother turtle came ashore during daylight to lay eggs out of pain defying the risk. Had the turtle not laid eggs, it might have died, the volunteer said.
Ayach Uddin said the mother turtle laid 110 eggs at one go. He collected the eggs and preserved those at the environment department’s hatchery in Golachipa area. These eggs will hatch after two months and more than 500 turtle eggs are preserved at the hatch, he added.
Environment activist Joynal Abedin, 30, from the west beach area, said numerous turtles came ashore in west, south and north sides of the island to lay eggs. Such atmosphere no longer exists; mother turtles do not come either.
Increased noise is destroying the atmosphere in Chhera Island where turtle lays eggs. Dead turtle often comes ashore adrift. There are also more than 12,000 stray dogs on the island. Stray dogs have taken over the entire dogs. When mother turtle comes ashore to lay egg in the desolate beach, they fall prey to the dogs. Stray dogs also eat the dead turtles that came ashore afloat, Joynal Abedin added.
Assistant director of the environment department’s St. Martin Island office, Md Azharul Islam, said turtle coming ashore from the deep sea could not lay eggs because of stray dogs. Mother turtles are attacked just after reaching the shore. It is necessary to reduce the number of stray dogs to protect the mother turtles, he added.