The forest officials are planning to set up Olive Ridley sea turtle hatcheries at six points along the coastline in Krishna, East Godavari and Guntur districts to protect the eggs of Olive Ridley sea turtles, an endangered species.

The hatcheries will start functioning from Decem-ber last week as the sea turtles start coming to the coast to lay eggs during that time. The officials are planning to set up the hatcheries at Gudivaka-lanka, Elachetladibba, Nachugunta, Sorlagondi in Krishna district, Hope Island in East Godavari district and Lankava-nidibba in Guntur district.

As part of the sea turtles conservation, the forest officials successfully protected the eggs of Olive Ridley turtles last year and released 1.54 lakh hatchlings into the sea. The officials noticed the migration of Olive Ridley turtles into the sea coast of Elachetladibba and Lanka-vanidibba during Febru-ary last year. The officials led by conservator of forests (wildlife) management circle Eluru, Mr A.K. Sinha, took the initiative to protect the eggs from jackals and wild boars present in the mangroves.

Local youth were appointed to protect the eggs of the sea turtles, which lay eggs during night and enter the sea by morning. Though hunting of sea turtles and damaging the eggs is strictly prohibited under Sche-dule I of the Wild Life Pro-tection Act, as per the records the survival chance of the sea turtles was only one per cent as animals and human beings are consuming or destroying the eggs.

Speaking to this newspaper, Mr Sinha said they are going to launch the conservation of sea turtles by December last week at six places along the coast this year. As part of the conservation of turtles, the officials provide bicycles to local youth to collect the turtle eggs along the sea coast during night to protect them from jackals and preserve them in a pit guarded by a fenc-ing.

The forest officials have to guard the hatchlings till entering the sea. Otherwise they will be carried away by the sea gulls while they are slowly entering the sea. The forest officials are also planning to develop mangroves along the coastline to provide habitation for sea turtles to lay eggs.

It will take 40 days for the hatchling to come out of the eggs. The officials will collect the hatchlings and rel-ease them into sea at a time to prevent them from taking away by the sea gulls.