CHENNAI: It is not just the routines of Chennai residents that Cyclone Thane disturbed. Other life forms that call the city home too seem to have altered their schedules due to the cyclone. Thanks to the inclement weather and rough seas, endangered olive ridley turtles have put off coming to Chennai’s treacherous beaches to lay their eggs.While the ridleys are no strangers to strong northeasterly winds that blow across India’s eastern coast during this part of the year, the very severe cyclonic storm Thane has delayed the beginning of the Ridley nesting season by at least 10 days. “Usually, by this time we would have recovered around 15 or 20 nests between Chennai and Puducherry. Though this is not the peak of the nesting season, it marks the beginning, and female ridleys tend to hang close to the coast,” says Elumalai, a Sea Turtle Protection Force member from the Injambakkam fishing hamlet. When a turtle comes ashore to lay her eggs, she is in a trance. And she needs to dig the nest beyond the high tide line. The wet sand would make it difficult indeed for the nesting turtle to dig and lay her eggs. There could also be dire consequences for the eggs, given that the temperature of the nests has a direct bearing on their fate. This usually prevents olive ridleys from nesting during storms or rains.But now that Cyclone Thane has crossed, the coast seems to be clear for the turtles to come in once the sands dry up reasonably. “The seas were rough due to high surface winds. But normalcy should return to the seas in a couple of days. There is no big weather event in the foreseeable future,” says S R Ramanan, Director of the Regional Meteorological Centre. Turtle enthusiasts have expressed optimism for a conducive nesting season for the ridley turtles, now that Chennai and its surroundings seem to be in for a bout of pleasant weather.
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