KARWAR: The carcass of an extremely rare green turtle was found ashore on the Rabindranath Tagore beach in Karwar for the first time. This has thrilled the marine biologists, who said it has opened a new avenue of study and conservation.
The green turtle was found behind the Marine Biology postgraduate centre in Karwar by some students. “It was first sighted by Asha Naik, my classmate, who called me to confirm the identity. We do not have a record of finding a green turtle here before,” Kiran Vasudeva Murthy, a student of Marine Biology told Express.
They alerted the forest department regarding the find, and an official from the special wing monitoring marine life, arrived to inspect the body.
“We identified it as the body of a green turtle. Unfortunately, it had decomposed badly and we could not assess the cause of its death.
Forest officials disposed of it without conducting postmortem,” Shivakumar Haragi, Assisstant Professor, Department of Marine Biology, who inspected the turtle said.
Green turtles are the largest among the hard shelled sea turtles that weigh up to 200 kg. Deputy Conservator of Forests Karwar Vasanth Reddy too said that this is the first record of sighting a green turtle here and said the forest department has now started monitoring the rare marine wildlife considering their significance.