Satellite-tagged Olive Ridley turtle stops transmitting signal after travelling 1,000km

Kendrapada: A satellite-tagged Olive Ridley turtle stopped transmitting signal last month after travelling around 1,000km in the sea from Gahirmatha marine sanctuary in Kendrapada district to Sri Lanka.Scientists at Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in collaboration with the state forest department had fitted satellite transmitters or platform transmitter terminals (PTT) on the carapaces of two female Olive Ridley sea turtles on March 12 this year on the Gahirmatha beach during mass-nesting of the turtles to track their routes. “The other turtle had stopped transmitting signals in Feb after reaching Sri Lankan seawater,” Dr Suresh Kumar, a senior scientist of WII, Dehradun, said.“We had been monitoring the movement of the satellite transmitters fitted with turtles every day. When a tracking transmitter on a turtle stops signalling, it can be due to device malfunction, the turtle's death or premature detachment of the tag. This is a common occurrence in wildlife satellite-tracking studies,” Dr Kumar added.