REUTERS (India) 17 January 07 Stray dogs targeted as India bids to save turtles
Kolkata: Authorities in eastern India have decided to round up thousands of stray dogs on the coast to stop them eating the eggs and hatchlings of the rare Olive Ridley turtles, officials said on Wednesday.
Some 300,000 of the turtles, an endangered species, visit the beaches of Orissa every year to lay their eggs, providing a feast for some 2,000 stray dogs.
"Ahead of the important egg-laying period in February, we thought of undertaking the population control of dogs to save the turtles," Bishnu Pada Sethi, director of the state veterinary and animal husbandry department, told Reuters.
Hundreds of health workers will round up the dogs and sterilise them before releasing them in villages away from areas the turtles head for, Sethi said from state capital Bhubaneswar.
The sterilisation could stop pregnant [bleep]es from looking for eggs to feed themselves and later their puppies. Thousands of Olive Ridleys are also killed every year for their meat and what many people see as their medicinal value.
India has banned trawlers in turtle areas off the east coast. But still 8,000 to 10,000 dead turtles are washed ashore every year after getting caught in fishing nets, Greenpeace officials said.
"When you consider that only one out of a thousand hatchlings makes it into the sea, controlling the dog population is one of the many efforts required to save the turtle," Sanjiv Gopal, a Greenpeace expert said.
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