Shell patrol squad: Chennai volunteers guard the turtle coast

Shell patrol squad: Chennai volunteers guard the turtle coast

It is 1am on a rather warm February night. The stretches of Neelankarai beach merge with Thiruvanmiyur beach. Fishing boats are stationed on the shore waiting for dawn. Bright lights from the city blind our vision. Sand in our shoes, salt in the air. Over 50 curious observers walk at a safe distance from the volunteers, letting them do their job: to find Olive Ridley turtle nests and collect the eggs for safekeeping.

The Olive Ridley sea turtle, a species classified as ‘Vulnerable’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, has nested along India’s eastern coastline for centuries. Each year, between December and April, females return to shore, often at night, to breed. Left buried in open sand, the nests are vulnerable to predators such as dogs. Volunteers therefore walk the length of the shore at night to retrieve the eggs and relocate them to protected hatcheries, giving them a safe space to incubate.

Approximately 30 minutes into the walk, the group comes to a halt. Up ahead, the volunteers have stopped. One of them turns, lifts a hand gently, and asks us to stay back.

An Olive Ridley turtle laying eggs on the Rushikulya river mouth beach at Podampeta in Ganjam district on Bay of Bengal Sea’s eastern coast in Odisha. | Photo Credit: BISWARANJAN ROUT

A cluster of volunteers form a loose circle, their torch beams crossing over a single patch of sand. From where we stand, it looks like nothing. No turtle, no visible sign of life. Fifteen minutes in the dark feels longer than it should. Then someone waves us forward.

The circle parts carefully. V Arun from the Students Sea Turtle Conservation Network (SSTCN), a voluntary organisation that works with the Forest Department, is already on his knees, digging into the sand. A nest has been found.

He digs into the nest, and starts retrieving soft shelled eggs that look fragile in a way that makes the entire beach feel suddenly hostile. It is small and covered in sand. One becomes five, five becomes 20, and eventually 82 eggs are pulled out of a 42cm deep nest. A few of them are deformed, some damaged, but it is a successful mission.

An olive ridley turtle nesting close to the Thottappally harbour in Alappuzha in February this year. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

“Some days we find many nests, some days we find nothing at all. We suggest that observers come for the experience, because engagement with Nature is important. You may happen to see a nesting turtle, which is the ultimate reward on a walk like this, but it may not happen at all. Wildlife is not something you can predict,” says Arun.

The scale of the effort extends far beyond one night’s walk. According to a report in The Hindu, during the 2024–25 season, a total of 3,19,895 eggs were collected across Tamil Nadu. By April, 2,29,432 hatchlings had been released back into the sea. Cuddalore led with 81,622 hatchlings, followed by Mayiladuthurai with 38,582, and Chennai recorded 37,689 hatchlings.

But conservation along Chennai’s coast is not driven by numbers alone. It is sustained by volunteers, students, working professionals, and concerned citizens who give up their weekends to walk through the night. What began about five decades ago as a small volunteer effort has evolved into a quiet civic ritual. On any given patrol, first-timers walk alongside veterans who have been scanning these shores for years. Some return season after season.

Forest department staff checking on the eggs laid by an Olive Ridley during the night patrol. | Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ B

“Seeing it in person is very different from just reading about it,” says Rozaline Sherly, a 21-year-old Law student from Bengaluru. “When you actually walk the stretch and see how they check for nests, and also see the dead turtles, it makes you more aware. If more people knew about this, there would be a more conscious effort to protect the environment.” She points out that while conversations around conservation often circulate online, witnessing the labour behind it shifts perspective. Both she and her friend who are studying environmental and coastal regulations say ground-level exposure adds weight to the laws they read about in classrooms.

Among the volunteers that night was Poornima, the head teacher of Marudam Farm School, Thiruvannamlai, who had brought along a group of 10 to 15 students. “The relationship with animals is very important for children. It is wildlife, and not something like a pet that is domesticated. That experience is important,” she says. She believes fascination must precede responsibility. In a world increasingly mediated by screens, she says, children need encounters with the unscripted, whether that is a turtle nest in the sand or a weekly Nature walk learning about trees and birds.

Conservation along Chennai’s coast is sustained by volunteers, students, working professionals, and concerned citizens who give up their weekends to walk through the night. | Photo Credit: Sangita Rajan

For Supraja Dharini of the Tree Foundation, a Chennai-based marine conservation organisation that works with fishing communities across Tamil Nadu and beyond, conservation begins not on the sand, but within villages. “Whether you like it or not, it is the fishermen who are interacting with endangered marine species on a daily basis,” she says. Over the past two decades, her organisation has trained community members to patrol beaches, protect nests and manage hatcheries along hundreds of kilometres of coastline. The idea, she explains, is simple: those whose livelihoods depend on the ocean must also become its stewards.

Compared to the late 1990s, when he first began patrolling these beaches, Arun says more turtles are nesting within the city’s limits today. “If I say the numbers have gone up because of our effort, it will sound very plausible. But turtles are just concentrating where space is available,” he says. What has changed, he adds, is the vigilance. With coordinated night patrols and closer monitoring, fewer nests go unnoticed. On shore, at least, the margin for error has narrowed.

Citizen turtle walks are conducted during the nesting season by multiple groups along the city’s coastline. | Photo Credit: Sangita Rajan

Supraja is candid about the larger pressures at sea. Trawling, she notes, is widely regarded as one of the most destructive forms of fishing, often compared to bulldozing the seabed. Regulations exist, but their impact depends on consistent enforcement and collective will. “The ocean belongs to every one of us. We should fight to protect it from over-exploitation,” she says.

According to forest range officer R Kalaivendan, coordination between volunteer groups and the department is crucial. “Night patrols now cover the entire stretch of the shore, and hatcheries are monitored daily during peak season. We need manpower to carry out these tasks. Since the Olive Ridely turtle is a Schedule 1 species, the forest department is always involved,” he says, adding that while citizen participation plays an important role in awareness, enforcement of policies and monitoring remain central to reducing mortality along the coast, and in the ocean. “There is a special range officer team now which collaborates with the fisheries department and ensures that trawling remains banned during peak turtle nesting season. We would like to believe that because of increased efforts like these, the mortality rate this year stands reduced by 50%.”

With coordinated night patrols and closer monitoring, fewer nests go unnoticed.

The scale of the effort extends far beyond one night’s walk.

Left buried in open sand, the nests are vulnerable to predators such as dogs.

On any given patrol, first-timers walk alongside veterans who have been scanning these shores for years.

Published - February 26, 2026 01:18 pm IST

The Hindu MetroPlus / ecosystems / habitat (conservation) / conservation

Source: TheHindu
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