Dear Ashis,
It is heartening the the ban has been in practice since 2006. I thought the Odisha govt had brought it into force only this week. the fact is that turtle deaths by trawl and gill nets happen when they get drowned after getting entangled by trawl nets which have a dip time of 5 hours or so, and gill nets which are like hanging walls of deaths and cause more turtle deaths than anything else, as they are cast at sea for days at a time. Mechanized fishing is indeed banned by the State government from the month of November to May but with no alternatives for the fisherfolk community, no demarcation of the Gahirmatha Sanctuary and an estimated no of 9000-10000 turtles are killed and washed ashore each year, presumably an equal number of them get washed offshore and their remains are never found. Turtles too were created in equal right by God. Only about 20 people have committed suicide. THese die by the thousands at the hands of fishermen's mechanised boats. THanks for the information . Of course the Odisha govt must take steps to rehabilitate such fishermen who have lost their livlihood to the turtles.Maybe some magnanimpous NGO comes up with alternate skills development for these fishermen. Yu might take my mail with apich of salt but what we have done to our tigrs and are doing to our turtles merits serious thought. Regards roopa
