The Ramakrishna Beach in the city seems to be a breeding ground for turtles as giant turtles like the Olive Ridleys have started reaching the beach since the beginning of February. Two turtles have already landed on the beach near the Coastal Battery point, but were found dead on Tuesday. They weighed over 100 kilos.

Environmentalists and turtle lovers allege that officials including the department of forests for wildlife have completely failed to protect the mar-ine species from predators like dogs. Even non-governmental organisations were not spotted in rescuing the marine species since they reached here.

Speaking to this correspondent, the Indira Gan-dhi Zoological Park curator, Mr G. Ramalingam, said that the current period is the breeding season for turtles. He suspects that the two turtles might have reached the shore to lay eggs.

“We could not take any preventive step to protect the turtles from predators as the area they reached does not come under the zoo limits,” the curator maintained.

The district forest officer, Ms Shivani Dogra, did not respond to this newspaper despite repeated phone calls on Tuesday evening.

When contacted, Mr Narayana Rao, incharge of Sea Turtle Protection, a project being run by the department of forests in association with the Visakhapatnam Society for Protection and Care of Animals (SPCA), said that four hatcheries were set across the sea in the city to collect the eggs of the Olive Ridley. These are at Ramakrishna beach, Jodugullapalem, Bheemili and Rushikonda.

On Monday night alone, a couple of Olive Ridley turtles reached the Lumbini Park beach point and laid 145 eggs. The society collected the eggs and kept these in the Jodugullapalem hatchery.

The Srikakulam coast, particularly at Vajrapu Kotturu, received a large number of turtles in the last few weeks.

Speaking to this newspaper, the Srikakulam DFO, Mr Thayyab, said that they had collected nearly 1,000 eggs of the Olive Ridley in the last one week from five hatcheries across the coast in Srikakulam.